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THE  SCHOLAR  AND  THE  STATE 


THE 
SCHOLAR  AND  THE  STATE 


AND 


OTHER  ORATIONS 
AND  ADDRESSES 


BY 

HENRY  CODMAN   POTTER,  D.D.,  LL.  D. 

BISHOP  OF  NEW  YORK 


NEW  YORK 

Zhc  Century  Co* 

1897 


Copyright,  1888,  1892,  by 
The  Forum  Publishing  Company 

Copyright,  1891,  \>j 

The  North  American  Review 

Publishing  Company 

Copyright,  1884,  1897,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


The  DeVinke  Press. 


TO  THE 

MEMORY   OF  MY   FATHER 

The  Right  Rev.  ALONZO  POTTER,  d.d.,  ll.d. 

LATE   OF   THE   DIOCESE   OF   PENNSYLVANIA 

SCHOLAR,  STATESMAN.  BISHOP 


PREFACE 

THE  publication  in  this  form  of  the  papers 
contained  in  this  volume  originated  in  a  re- 
quest from  its  publishers,  and  not  in  any  proposal 
or  suggestion  of  mine.  I  am  glad  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  say  this,  because  it  gives  me  the  further 
opportunity  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  them 
for  a  privilege  which  I  am  thankful  to  embrace. 

There  are  two  dangers  to  which  religious  teach- 
ers, or  those  holding  ecclesiastical  office,  are  liable. 
One  of  them  is  that  of  disassociating  themselves 
from  the  life  of  the  communities  in  which  they 
live,  and  of  cultivating  a  habit  of  what  seems  like 
indifferent  reserve  to  the  civic  and  social  interests 
of  their  age  and  nation.  The  other  is  that  of  ob- 
truding themselves  into  such  questions  in  such  a 
way  as  seems  to  forget  that,  in  its  highest  aspect, 
the  Kingdom  of  their  Master  is  "  not  of  this  world." 

But  there  is  surely  a  third  alternative.  A  priest 
or  minister  does  not  cease  to  be  a  citizen.  One 
whose  supreme  allegiance  is  spiritual  may  not  pre- 
tend that  he  has  no  other.  His  office,  his  gifts,  his 
learning,  his  experience,  his  counsels,  such  as  they 
are,  may  wisely  be  used  to  serve  the  State  as  well 
as  the  Church.  He  may  not  organize  parties,  nor 
devise  policies,  nor  attempt  to  manipulate  a  caucus 

vii 


Preface 

or  a  canvass.  But  lie  may  strive  to  lift  all  local 
questions  into  their  highest  atmosphere;  and  he 
may  wisely  use  such  gifts  and  opportunities  as  may 
have  been  intrusted  to  him,  first  to  disassociate 
local  questions,  movements,  or  occasions  from  their 
merely  local  aspect,  and  then  to  bear  witness  al- 
ways to  the  demands  of  that  eternal  righteousness 
without  perpetual  reference  to  which  no  state  or 
scheme  can  end  otherwise  than  in  ultimate  failure 
and  ruin. 

Along  such  lines  the  papers  that  follow  have 
sought,  under  varying  conditions,  to  move.  Some 
of  them  represent  occasions  where  only  the  most 
partial  and  fragmentary  treatment  of  large  themes 
was  possible ;  and  others  are  the  imperfect  report 
of  utterances  originally  wholly  unwi'itten,  and  de- 
livered without  manuscript  or  note  of  any  kind. 
Their  literary  defects  therefore  cannot  be  so  appa- 
rent to  any  other  as  to  their  author.  The  sub- 
stance of  what  they  afl&rm,  on  the  other  hand, 
stands  for  what  are,  in  such  connections,  his  stead- 
ily deepening  convictions.  He  will  be  glad  and 
thankful  if  in  any  way  they  may  stimulate  edu- 
cated men,  whether  ministers  of  religion  or  others, 
to  bear  their  testimony  in  the  interest  of  civic 
righteousness;  and  to  use  their  gifts  and  oppor- 
tunities in  willing  service  for  their  fellow-men. 

Heney  C.  Potter. 


vui 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

I  The  Scholar  and  the  State 1 

n  Character  in  Statesmanship     ....       33 

III  The  Scholar  in  American  Life    .       .       .       .47 

IV  Scholarship  and  Service 71 

V  The  Heroisms  op  the  Unknown   .       .       .       .97 

VI  The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life  .      Ill 

VII  The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities  .       .       .  147 

VIII  Christianity  and  the  Criminal        .        .       .      165 

IX  A  Phase  of  Social  Science 183 

X  Nobility  in  Business 197 

XI  The  Ministry  of  Music 217 

XII  The  Gospel  for  Wealth 233 

XIII  The  Christian  and  the  State      ....  251 

XIV  The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition.       .       .     267 
XV  A  Hundred  American  Years 281 

XVI  The  Life-Giving  Word 297 

XVII  The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral  .  321 


IX 


THE  SCHOLAR  AND  THE  STATE 

ORATION 

Delivered  Before  The  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Chapter  of  Harvard 
University  June  26,  1890 


THE  SCHOLAR  AND  THE  STATE 


A  STRANGER  here,  unwonted  to  these  scenes 
and  foreign  to  this  goodly  fellowship,  must 
still  be  greatly  moved  by  an  atmosphere  unique  and 
by  presences  so  interesting  and  representative.  It 
is  not  alone  the  contrast  which  this  occasion  and 
these  interests  present  to  those  with  which  most 
of  us  are  engrossed  —  though  to  that,  I  imagine, 
few  of  us  can  be  insensible  —  it  is  that  pathetic 
element  here,  for  surely  it  is  pathetic,  which  allies 
this  scene  with  that  almost  forgotten  past  that,  to- 
day at  any  rate,  lives  again  in  vivid  and  tender 
remembrance.  There  are  men  here  this  morning, 
as  there  were  yesterday,  whose  life  for  a  generation, 
it  may  have  been,  has  been  crowded  with  tasks  and 
surcharged  with  impressions  to  which  the  scholastic 
atmosphere  is  wholly  alien.  If  they  had  ever  any 
keen  enthusiasm  for  letters,  it  has  been  chilled  or 
smothered  by  interests  which  they  could  not  ignore, 
and  demands  which  they  could  not  deny.  Out  of 
the  whirl  and  rush  of  those  tremendous  forces 
which  have  not  yet  done  their  march  across  the 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

continent  whose  wilderness  they  have  peopled  and 
subdued,  they  have  caught,  from  time  to  time,  the 
echoes  of  that  other  life  which  some  of  you  have 
been  living  here  —  so  calm  as  it  has  seemed  to 
them — so  happily  disengaged  from  duties  and  bur- 
dens which  it  has  been  theirs,  not  yours,  to  bear, 
and,  if  remote  from  living  interests,  as  they  reckon 
those  interests,  still  enviable  for  its  privileges,  and 
by  virtue  of  its  very  contrasts  only  the  more  im- 
posing. 

But,  to-day,  as  they  have  come  back  here,  there 
has  awakened  another  feeling.  Besides  that  very 
natural  and  proper  pride  which  may  well  be  theirs 
who  are  the  sons  of  a  university  at  once  so  vener- 
able and  so  distinguished,  the  children  who,  after 
long  absence,  have  turned  their  feet  this  way  must 
needs  be  stirred  by  other  emotions,  deeper,  more 
somber  often,  and  therefore  not  so  easily  expressed. 
No  man  who  has  known  the  joys  of  coUege  life, 
and  has  gone  out  from  them  into  the  stress  of  the 
larger  life  beyond,  can  come  back  on  such  occa- 
sions as  these  without  somehow  taking  account  of 
himself.  With  a  strange  flush  of  intensity,  there 
awaken  in  him,  as  he  walks  across  the  familiar 
campus,  or  climbs  to  the  room  where  once  he 
lodged,  or  stands  within  the  walls  where  day  after 
day  he  recited,  the  memories  of  that  young  and 
expectant  life  of  which  all  these  were  a  part,  and 
of  the  hopes  and  anticipations  with  which,  amid 
them,  he  chafed  to  reach  the  greater  world  before 
him.  He  knew  then,  even  though  dimly,  the  prizes 
for  which  he  hoped;  and  he  knows  now  whether 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

he  has  won  them.  He  can  recall  to-day  the  ideals 
with  which  he  set  out,  and  he  is  not  ignorant  as  to 
how  far  he  has  succeeded  in  realizing  them.  The 
fine  audacity  of  youth  has  stiffened  into  a  more 
mechanical  routine,  and  is  bounded  by  a  more  con- 
tracted horizon  of  expectation ;  but  underneath  all 
this  there  is  a  sense  of  difference  between  what 
then  he  dreamed  and  what  now  he  is  —  a  sense 
which  has  in  it  that  vision  of  one's  self  which, 
while  it  must  needs  humble,  may  also  help  to 
ennoble. 

But  all  this  is  personal  and  local.  The  scholar, 
however,  is  part  of  a  larger  whole,  larger  than 
the  college,  larger  than  the  partnerships,  domes- 
tic, commercial,  professional,  into  which  he  passes 
as  he  goes  out  from  college  walls.  Does  it  ever 
occur  to  him  to  challenge  himseK,  as  he  comes 
back  here  to-day,  as  to  what  he  has  done  for 
that  larger — nay,  for  us  who  are  American  citi- 
zens, that  largest  whole?  He  is  the  child  not 
only  of  this  his  Alma  Mater,  but  also  of  a  great 
republic;  and  the  privileges  which,  whether  here 
or  elsewhere,  he  has  enjoyed  have  largely  come 
to  him  because  of  those  provisions  for  theu'  ex- 
istence and  maintenance  which  come  to  him  from 
the  state.  It  has  been  the  glory  of  our  repub- 
lican institutions,  whether  in  this  elder  common- 
wealth or  her  younger  sisters,  that  they  have, 
from  their  first  straitened  beginnings,  all  the  way 
on,  done  generous  things  for  learning.  Nothing  is 
more  beautiful  in  the  history  of  the  founders, 
whether  here  or  elsewhere,  than  the  early  eagerness 

3 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

with  wMcli  they  wi'ought  and  contrived  that  the 
foundations  of  our  civic  fabric  might  be  laid  in 
sound  learning.  And  from  those  beginnings  until 
now,  not  here  alone,  but  in  those  wonderful  com- 
munities westward  and  southward,  where,  to-day, 
there  are  gathered  in  the  enjoyment  of  privileges 
only  less  than  these  thousands  of  youths  who  are 
to  be  the  flower  of  the  nation's  manhood  —  what- 
ever else  that  was  not  quite  wise  or  worthy  that 
local  or  national  legislation  has  done,  it  has  done 
princely  things  for  the  student.  To  open  wide  the 
portals  of  knowledge  and  welcome  all  who  would 
come,  this  our  land  has  ever  striven  to  do,  even 
when  she  has  not  quite  achieved  it. 

And  we  —  whose  has  been  so  much,  so  cheaply 
bought  or  freely  given — what  has  been  our  return  ? 
It  would  be  a  monstrous  conception  of  learning  if 
any  one  of  us  .were  to  esteem  it  only  as  a  selfish 
weapon  with  which  he  was  to  carve  his  way  to 
personal  fame  and  fortune.  Even  if  there  were  no 
sense  of  personal  indebtedness  toward  that  wide- 
encompassing  institution  which  has  at  once  shel- 
tered and  nurtured  those  other  institutions  such  as 
this,  which  have  grown  great  and  strong  beneath 
its  benignant  protection,  one  would  think  that 
there  must  needs  be  at  least  an  intelligent  percep- 
tion of  that  constant  and  never-decreasing  debt 
which  the  educated  forces  in  a  state  owe,  as  its 
better-equipped  element,  to  the  state  itself.  For, 
as  the  scholar  has  his  learning,  not  merely  that  he 
may  serve  himself,  but  also,  in  serving  himself,  his 
fellow-men ;  so  not  least,  if  not  most,  he  has  it  that 

4 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

he  may  serve  and  strengthen  that  civic  order  which 
underlies  all  that  we  call  civilization. 

And  so  to-day,  my  brothers,  as,  amid  these  fes- 
tive interchanges,  you  felicitate  yourselves  upon  the 
growth  of  youi*  Alma  Mater,  as  you  watch  with 
something  of  wonder  if  not  of  awe  the  stately  prog- 
ress of  her  later  years,  as  you  catch  the  echoes  of 
those  jubilant  cheers  which  have  hailed  her  victories 
on  many  a  worthy  field,  may  we  not  wisely  scan  for 
a  little  that  wider  field  which  lies  beyond  these 
scenes,  and  ask  ourselves  what  part  we  have  borne, 
not  alone  in  serving  and  ennobling  the  Univer- 
sity, but  in  serving  and  ennobling  the  state?  The 
Scholar  and  the  State;  this  is  my  theme  during 
the  few  moments  that  youi*  rare  favor  vouchsafes 
to  me.  Forgive  me  if  I  speak  to  it  with  the  plain- 
ness which,  as  I  am  profoundly  persuaded,  the 
hour  demands,  even  if  your  judgments  may  not 
quite  approve. 

In  the  sixth  book  of  the  "Republic"  Plato  makes 
Socrates  say : 

There  is  a  very  small  remnant,  Adeimantus,  of  wor- 
thy disciples  of  philosophy,  perchance  some  noble  nature 
brought  up  under  good  influences,  ...  or  some  lofty 
soul  born  in  a  mean  city,  the  pohtics  of  which  he  con- 
temns or  neglects.  .  .  .  Those  who  belong  to  this 
small  class  have  tasted  how  sweet  and  blessed  a  posses- 
sion philosophy  is,  and  have  also  seen  and  been  satisfied 
of  the  madness  of  the  multitude.  .  .  .  Unable  to  join 
in  the  wickedness  of  his  fellows,  neither  would  such  an 
one  be  able,  alone,  to  resist  all  their  fierce  natures;  and 
therefore  he  would  be  of  no  use  to  the  state  or  to  his 
1*  5 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

friends.  ...  He  reflects  upon  all  this,  and  holds  his 
peace  and  does  his  own  business.  He  is  like  one  who 
retires  under  the  shelter  of  a  wall  in  the  storm  of  dust 
and  sleet  which  the  driving  wind  hurries  along;  and 
when  he  sees  the  rest  of  mankind  full  of  wickedness,  he 
is  content  if  only  he  can  live  his  own  Life  and  be  pure 
from  evil  or  unrighteousness,  and  depart  in  peace  with 
bright  hopes.  "And  he  who  does  this,"  says  Adeiman- 
tus,  "  will  have  done  a  great  work  before  he  departs." 
"  Yes,"  answers  Socrates,  "  but  not  the  greatest,  unless  he 
find  a  state  suitable  to  him;  for  in  a  state  suitable  to  him 
he  will  have  a  larger  growth,  and  be  the  saviour  of  his 
country  as  well  as  of  himself."  ^ 

Verily,  here  we  have,  in  words  of  immortal 
significance,  that  situation  which  is  forever  tlie 
scholar's  temptation  on  the  one  hand  and  his  op- 
portunity on  the  other.  The  skies  change,  but  the 
nature  of  man  is  one,  and  the  culture  and  learn- 
ing of  to-day  are  not  otherwise  allured  and  beck- 
oned by  the  voice  of  selfish  ease  than  when 
Greece  struggled  for  her  hberties  and  lost  them, 
not  more  because  of  the  foes  that  were  without 
than  because  of  the  traitors  that  were  within. 
There  is,  in  other  words,  a  perpetual  danger,  in  the 
case  of  educated  men,  of  becoming  the  critic  of  the 
state  rather  than  its  servant.  Withdrawn  by  his 
occupations  from  much  of  the  active  contacts  of 
life  —  or  seeking  them  only  so  far  as  he  is  con- 
strained by  the  necessities  of  his  cu'cumstances  — 
such  an  one  settles,  soon  and  easily,  into  the  habit, 
first  of  the  mere  observer  and  then  of  the  indif- 

1  Plato,  "The  Eepublic":  Jowett's  Translation,  vol.  ii,  p.  330. 

6 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

ferent  censor.  The  shouts  and  struggles  of  the 
arena  are  so  coarse  and  selfish  and  unintelligent, 
the  influences  that  move  the  multitude  are  so  friv- 
olous or  so  sophistical,  the  atmosphere  of  parties 
is  so  largely  obscured  by  prejudice  or  ignorance, 
that,  after  that  first  generous  fever  of  the  enthu- 
siasm of  citizenship  which  comes  with  youth,  a 
very  considerable,  and  by  far  the  most  potential, 
element  of  those  who  represent  the  trained  thought 
and  ampler  learning  of  the  nation  withdraws  from 
active  concern  for  its  affairs,  and  contents  itself 
with  being  lookers-on.  I  appeal  to  your  own  exper- 
iences to  bear  me  witness  whether  it  is  not  ordi- 
narily true  that  those  whose  interests  are  identical 
with  higher  culture,  and  next  to  them,  those  who 
have  been  trained  to  think  and  to  reflect,  are  those 
who  are  often  most  remote  from  the  activities  that 
dictate  the  policies  and  contribute  to  shape  the 
destiny  of  the  nation. 

Nor  is  this,  indeed,  surprising.  The  qualities  that 
are  mainly  demanded  in  public  life  in  such  a  land 
and  age  as  ours  are  not  ordinarily  those  which  are 
bred  in  the  cloisters  of  learning  or  nurtured  by 
much  study.  A  certain  adroitness  of  mental  qual- 
ity—  a  gift  of  popular  expression  —  the  power  of 
attracting  and  attaching  personal  followers,  a  blind 
devotion  to  one's  party,  and  a  convenient  oblivion 
to  finer  scruples  of  conduct,  these  are  character- 
istics which,  far  oftener  than  otherwise,  find  swift 
and  ardent  recognition. 

But  over  against  such  facts  we  may  never  forget 
that  there  are  others,  and  that  there  is  the  scholar's 

7 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

opportunity.  "  In  a  state  which  is  suitable  to  him," 
says  Plato,  "  the  man  of  ideas  should  have  a  larger 
gi'owth  " ;  and  no  moment  of  despondency  ought  to 
persuade  us  to  forget  that  ours  is  a  nation  of  that 
larger  growth  where  larger  ideas  than  those  of  self- 
aggrandizement  have  already  had  no  ignoble  illus- 
tration. In  a  recent  monograph  upon  Chief -Justice 
Marshall,  an  eminent  Western  jmist  ^  has  called  to 
mind  the  resplendent  wisdom  and  profound  legal 
acumen  with  which  Marshall  once  and  again  vindi- 
cated the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution  against  the 
erroneous  rulings  of  State  tribunals.  But  we  may 
never  forget  that  behind  the  voice  of  the  gi'eat 
Chief -Justice  there  were  that  sound  political  con- 
science and  that  clear  mental  vision  of  the  great 
body  of  the  people  which,  sooner  or  later,  sustained 
the  Supreme  Court  in  positions  which,  of  itself,  it 
was  wholly  powerless  to  enforce.  For  one,  I  believe 
m  that  conscience  and  that  vision  to-day  as  pro- 
foundly as  I  believe  in  the  better  instincts  of 
humanity  everywhere.  That  they  may  be  tempo- 
rarily blinded  and  confused,  we  have  perhaps  as 
painful  evidence  of  late  as  any  which  the  history 
of  the  Republic  has  given  us.  But  that  they  have 
not  lost  their  power  there  are  abundant  and  cheer- 
ing signs.  What  now,  I  ask  you,  in  such  an  emerg- 
ency, is  your  duty  and  mine  ?  The  Republic  at  this 
moment  is  confronted  by  three  conspicuous  dan- 
gers, which,  while  they  may  not  be  those  which 
all  of  us  may  own  as  most  grave,  have  neverthe- 
less a  typical  and  representative  character  whose 

1  The  Hon.  Henry  Hitchcock,  LL.  D. 
8 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

significance  it  is  not  easy  to  overestimate.  Let 
me  speak  of  them  briefly  for  a  few  moments,  and 
then  of  those  more  particular  obligations  which 
their  existence  devolves  upon  scholars. 

The  mechanism  of  a  government  so  vast  and 
complex  as  om's  demands  a  huge  army  of  servants, 
on  whom  the  responsibility  of  its  efficient  admin- 
istration largely  rests.  We  are  perpetually  dazzled 
by  the  illusion  that,  if  once  we  can  devise  a  perfect 
machine,  it  will  go  somehow  of  itself;  but  there 
are  no  perfect  machines,  and  if  there  were,  the 
very  conditions  of  the  existence  of  that  mechanism 
which  we  call  the  state  would  forbid  its  perfection 
in  action,  since  it  is  contingent  at  every  turn  upon 
the  voluntary  consent,  the  more  or  less  trained  in- 
telligence, and  above  all  the  personal  integrity  of 
the  individual.  No  system  of  government  has  won 
more  hearty  encomiums  from  those  trained  under 
alien  skies  and  rule  than  our  own,  and  no  one  who 
has  read  the  remarkable  review  of  our  political  in- 
stitutions by  that  eminent  and  gifted  Englishman, 
the  Hon.  James  Bryee,  to  whom  we  owe  the  two  vol- 
umes entitled  "  The  American  Commonwealth,"  can 
rise  from  them  without  a  profound  sense  of  the 
great  possibilities  of  so  nobly  conceived  and  so 
finely  balanced  a  system  of  government  instituted 
under  conditions  so  exceptionally  favorable  to  its 
success. 

But,  as  Tocqueville  pointed  out  long  ago,  the  ex- 
cellence and  delicacy  of  a  vast  civic  mechanism 
only  the  more  demand  intelligent,  prudent,  and 
reverent  handling.     With  that  rare  foresight  and 

9 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

penetration  which  will  make  him  for  all  time  a 
teacher  to  this  people,  he  wrote,  nearly  three  quar- 
ters of  a  centmy  ago:  "It  would  seem  as  if  the 
rulers  of  our  time  sought  only  to  use  men  to  make 
things  great ;  I  wish  they  would  tiy  a  little  more  to 
make  great  men;  that  they  would  set  less  value 
upon  the  work  and  more  upon  the  workman ;  that 
they  would  never  forget  that  a  nation  cannot  long 
remain  strong  when  every  man  belonging  to  it  is 
individually  weak ;  and  that  no  form  or  combina- 
tion of  social  polity  has  yet  been  devised  to  make 
an  energetic  people  out  of  a  community  of  pusil- 
lanimous and  enfeebled  citizens."^ 

And  yet  one  would  think  that  no  system  had 
ever  been  devised  more  effectually  to  disparage  the 
work,  and  to  degrade  into  pusillanimous  and  en- 
feebled citizenship  the  workman,  than  that  system 
of  civic  service  which,  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and 
never  more  insistently  than  of  late,  has  been  striv- 
ing to  establish  itself  among  this  people.  A  policy 
of  favoritism  which  makes  partizan  service  the 
substantial  basis  for  political  prefeiTnent,  and  a 
fine  disdain  for  the  element  of  personal  fitness, 
whatever  the  place  or  task,  which  exacts  only  so 
much  competency  as  can  rescue  the  place-holder 
from  absolute  disgrace  —  this  has  come  to  be  the 
war-cry  which  treats  every  office  of  trust  as  so 
much  spoil,  and  every  political  contest  as  simply  a 
scramble  for  personal  emolument. 

That  such  a  view  of  the  service  of  the  govern- 
ment should  be  held  by  some  Tuscan  bandit  es- 

1  "Democracy  in  America,"  vol.  ii,  p.  406.     Cambridge. 
lO 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

caped  out  of-  his  transalpine  fastnesses  to  prey 
upon  our  unsuspecting  institutions  would  not  be 
occasion  for  surprise.  But  that  it  has  come  to  be 
the  deliberate  conviction  of  men  in  high  place 
among  us,  and  that  this  new  gospel  of  unscrupu- 
lous seK-seeking  is  openly  proclaimed  as  the  only 
spell  powerful  enough  to  maintain  a  healthy  and 
active  interest  in  our  political  institutions  —  that, 
in  other  words,  there  is  no  instinct  of  patriotism 
strong  enough  to  constrain  a  man  to  active  par- 
ticipation in  the  political  life  of  the  nation  unless 
there  dangles  before  him  all  the  while  the  possible 
prize  which  he  may  snatch  out  of  the  sordid  and 
shameless  strife  —  this  certainly  is  a  teaching 
which  may  well  make  all  honest  people  flush  with 
keen  and  indignant  shame ! 

For,  in  close  touch  with  it,  there  stands  plainly 
enough  the  inevitable  corollary  that  no  man  who 
serves  the  state  only  from  such  motives  will  scruple 
to  sacrifice  public  interests  to  private  ends,  when- 
ever he  can  safely  do  so.  Once  grant  that  civic 
place  is  a  private  placer^  out  of  which  you  and  I 
must  first  snatch  that  which  shall  compensate  our- 
selves for  the  discomfort  and  degi'adation  involved 
in  scrambling  for  it,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
the  sequence  which  puts  self  or  one's  party  fii'st, 
and  one's  country  last,  does  not  hold  all  the  way 
through.  And,  indeed,  that  no  higher  sense  of 
civic  obligation  than  this  is  widely  prevalent  is  in- 
dicated by  the  painful  fact  (to  which  one  finds  it 
difficult  to  allude  with  becoming  delicacy  and  re- 
serve) that  great  parties  and  great  personages  are 

II 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

able  in  this  matter  to  affirm,  on  platforms  and  in 
official  pronunciamientos,  and  with  such  unctuous 
solemnity,  a  virtue  which,  in  practice,  they  find  it 
no  less  easy  with  open  and  brazen  impunity  to 
flout  and  disregard.  Such  a  situation,  gentlemen, 
disguise  or  dispute  it  as  men  may,  never  can  be 
belittled  or  ignored  as  a  mere  partizan  issue.  It  is 
an  issue  of  morals,  it  is  a  question  of  common 
honesty;  for  men  in  civic  power  are  simply  the 
servants  of  the  state,  and  the  public  service  is  a 
pubhc  trust,  abuse  or  perversion  or  malfeasance  in 
which  is  not  a  less  but  a  greater  crime  than 
unfaithfulness  to  a  private  trust. 

And  that  brings  me  to  speak  of  another  dan- 
ger which  threatens  the  safety  of  the  Eepubhc, 
and  concerning  which  I  think  the  duty  of  all 
scholars  is  equally  clear  and  imperative.  Out  of 
the  evil  to  which  I  have  just  referred  there  has 
grown,  not  unnaturally,  another,  which  in  its  en- 
feebling and  corrupting  possibilities  is  a  matter  of 
portentous  import.  Mr.  Lecky,  in  his  "  History  of 
European  Morals,"  has  drawn  an  impressive  pic- 
ture of  the  decadence  of  Roman  gi-eatness  under 
the  deteriorating  influence  of  Roman  conquests.^ 
Enriched  by  the  wealth  wrung  from  her  barbaric 
neighbors,  with  a  dominant  class  flushed  with  suc- 
cess and  debilitated  by  self-indulgence,  the  imperial 
policy  soon  became  one  preeminently  of  profuse 
indulgence.  It  was  easier  to  bribe  the  unemployed 
to  silence  than  to  devise  efficient  methods  for  their 
employment;  and  powerful  citizens  provided  for 

1  See  Lecky's  "European  Morals,"  chap,  ii,  passim. 
12 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

their  trains  of  dependents  by  largesses  of  corn  and 
of  money  paid  dii'ectly  from  the  public  treasury. 
There  was  thus  secured  to  them  a  docile  and  sub- 
servient constituency;  and,  as  Gibbon  shows,  the 
time  came  when  the  mercenary  spirit  so  far  pre- 
vailed over  every  other  that  when,  after  the  mur- 
der of  Pertinax  by  the  Pretorian  Gruard,  Sulpicia- 
nus  undertook  "  to  treat  for  the  imperial  dignity, 
the  more  prudent  of  the  Pretorians,  apprehensive 
that  in  this  private  contract  they  should  not  obtain 
a  just  price  for  so  valuable  a  commodity  as  the 
crown,  ran  out  upon  the  ramparts,  and  with  a  loud 
voice  proclaimed  that  the  Roman  Empire  was  to 
be  disposed  of  by  public  auction  to  the  highest 
bidder."  ^  With  us  there  is,  you  will  say,  no  throne 
to  be  bought  or  sold,  and  no  Pretorian  Guard  to 
claim  the  price  or  deliver  the  scepter.  But  we 
may  not  forget  that  the  events  of  our  recent 
struggle  for  national  existence  have  left  behind 
them  a  condition  of  things  which  makes  possible 
a  situation  only  less  scandalous  because  less  open 
and  notorious.  The  honorable  provision  for  those 
who  suffered  and  were  disabled  in  theu'  country's 
defense  threatens, — under  the  selfish  and  unscrupu- 
lous manipulation  of  those  who  see  in  the  degrada- 
tion of  their  fellow-citizens  a  short  and  easy  road 
to  political  supremacy, —  to  become  a  pauperizing 
system,  whose  least  and  most  innocent  consequence 
is  the  ruinous  burden  which  it  is  destined,  sooner 
or  later,  to  saddle  upon  the  public  treasury.    Never 

1  Gibbon's  "Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  vol.  1, 
pp.  92,  93.     Chandos  Library  edition. 

13 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

was  there  a  phariseeism  of  philanthropy  in  which 
personal  aggrandizement  more  impudently  mas- 
queraded in  the  garment  of  a  grateful  patriotism 
than  om'  haUs  of  Congress  have  lately  presented ; 
and  the  unmanly  silence  with  which  schemes  so 
grotesque  that  they  should  have  long  ago  been 
laughed  out  of  any  intelligent  public  assembly 
have  been  received,  is  one  of  the  most  amaz- 
ing facts  of  our  political  experience.  Indeed,  far 
apart  in  time  as  are  Rome  and  America,  we  must 
needs  own  that  the  resemblances  of  history  are  at 
once  tragic  and  significant.  It  was  a  huge  mili- 
tary organization,  remember,  which  once  put  the 
Roman  Empire  up  at  auction  and  proposed  to 
knock  it  down  to  the  highest  bidder.  To-day  it  is 
in  the  air  that  it  is  the  party  which  bids  highest  to 
a  precisely  similar  constituency  that  is  to  be  re- 
warded with  the  symbols  of  national  primacy  and 
authority.  And  out  of  this  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  not  alone  some  scarred  and  honorable  vet- 
eran, not  alone  some  brave  and  maimed  survivor 
of  an  heroic  charge,  that  not  alone  the  widow  and 
orphan  whom  death  on  the  field  or  in  the  hospital 
has  left  bereft  and  penniless  —  but  every  skulk- 
ing camp-follower  and  deserter,  every  fraudulent 
and  tainted  claimant  who  has  the  effrontery  to  de- 
mand his  bribe,  can  have  it,  if  only  his  vote  shall 
thus  become  a  commodity  within  the  control  of 
partizan  dictation,  and  he  himself  a  lackey  to  do 
his  political  master's  bidding.  I  have  nothing  to 
say  of  those  who  have  devised  this  infamy  and 
baptized  it  with  the  name  of  civic  gratitude;  but 

14 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

for  the  manliood.  which  it  is  destined  to  corrupt 
and  deprave,  no  honorable  man  can  feel,  I  think, 
any  other  than  the  most  profound  sympathy  and 
sorrow.  This  surely  is  a  system  of  government 
that  deliberately  conspires  to  degrade  men,  and  no 
deUcacy  ought  to  consent  to  excuse  or  condone  it. 

And  close  of  kin  to  this  evil  is  that  other 
which  is  surely  the  gravest  of  all,  because  it 
threatens,  and  that  deliberately,  those  ultimate 
foundations  upon  which  alike  the  safety  of  the 
family,  the  state,  the  nation  must  forever  rest. 
There  have  been  eras  in  the  history  of  our  own  as 
of  other  countries  when,  in  connection  with  grave 
issues  which  involved  in  their  settlement  funda- 
mental questions  of  morals,  a  clever  casuistry  has 
striven  to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better  part, 
and  to  find  in  some  ingenuity  of  construction  a 
warrant  for  doing  that  which  the  calmer  judgment 
of  mankind  has  universally  condemned.  But  it 
has  been  reserved  for  our  own  day  to  develop  a 
doctrine  of  morals  in  connection  with  the  domain 
of  public  affairs  which  even  the  ingenuity  of  Al- 
fonso de'  Liguori  would  have  found  it  difficult  to 
explain  or  excuse.  For  this  new  dogma  of  con- 
duct is,  simply  and  in  substance,  that  there  are 
certain  acts  and  relationships  in  life  which  have 
absolutely  no  moral  quality  whatever,  and  in  judg- 
ment of  them,  we  are  bidden  to  understand,  an 
appeal  to  the  ordinary  standards  of  right  and 
wrong  as  universally  existing  among  all  civilized 
people  is  simply  a  bald  impertinence. 

There  have  indeed  been  echoes  of  such  a  doc- 

15 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

trine  in  connection  with  the  world's  estimates  of 
great  men.  Some  of  us  will  remember  how  ]\Ir. 
Carlyle,  in  his  somewhat  extravagant  admiration 
for  Oliver  Cromwell,  intimates  that  all  eminence 
is  to  be  judged  by  a  certain  moral  standard  of  its 
own,  and  that  the  disposition  to  probe  the  motives 
or  unduly  criticize  the  actions  of  men  of  power  is 
somehow  a  stupid  absurdity.  But  such  a  claim, 
even  as  to  individuals,  must  needs  be  disallowed 
by  every  thoughtful  mind  that  recognizes  that  the 
disregard  of  those  common  and  elementary  obliga- 
tions of  truth  and  honor  which  bind  men  every- 
where must  most  of  all  be  reprobated  in  those 
whose  gifts,  or  place,  or  influence  enable  them  to 
abuse  power  to  evil  uses  or  turn  aside  the  right 
for  selfish  ends.  And  if  this  be  so,  what  shall  be 
said  of  those  who  go  beyond  this,  who  not  only 
consent  to  maxims  but  also  to  policies  which  are 
essentially  corrupt  and  corrupting,  and  who  bra- 
zenly defend  them  as  legitimate  elements  of  a 
state-craft  which  they  declare  is  to  be  dehber- 
ately  emptied  of  all  regard  for  moral  obligation? 
The  life  of  nations,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out, 
is  continually  repeating  itself ;  but  one  is  at  a  loss, 
in  any  past,  to  match  that  insolent  candor  in  this 
regard  to  which  we  have  lately  been  treated.  To 
have  it  proclaimed  amid  festivities  that  commem- 
orate the  birth  of  the  Repubhc  that  its  founders 
were  no  better  in  this  respect  than  the  veriest 
knaves,  and  that  no  methods  which  unscrupulous 
combinations  of  wealth  and  cleverness  could  de- 
vise would  have  been  alien,  had  they  happened  to 

i6 


The  Scbolur  and  the  State 

need  them  or  to  think  of  them,  to  men  whom  we 
have  been  taught  to  revere  as  the  embodiments  of 
civic  honor  and  public  virtue — this  is  an  infamy 
which  needed  only  one  other  to  crown  and  eclipse 
it,  and  that  other  has  not  been  wanting.  For  it 
has  been  reserved  for  our  times  to  hear  that,  in 
public  affairs,  moral  obligations,  as  embodied  in 
their  most  august  utterances,  and  emanating  from 
sources  that,  to  some  of  us  at  any  rate,  are  of  pre- 
eminent and  Divine  sanctity,  are  simply  to  be  dis- 
missed as  an  irrelevant  sentimentaUsm.  I  do  not 
indeed  forget  that  it  may  be  said,  and  with  some 
semblance  of  justice,  that  such  utterances  have  no 
more  significance  than  may  be  attached  to  the 
sources  from  which  they  have  emanated,  and  that 
there  have  not  been  wanting  those  who  have  been 
swift  to  disown  them.  But  that  some  things  are 
said  and  that  other  things  are  done  among  us,  by 
those  whose  position  gives  to  their  actions  a  spe- 
cial and  exceptional  significance,  and  that  neither 
acts  nor  words  are  denounced  or  repudiated  by 
those  whose  professions  make  them  the  especial 
guardians  of  morals  —  this  is  a  situation  which 
may  well  awaken  both  humiliation  and  alarm. 

"We  are  wont  to  expect  much  —  too  much,  I 
think  —  from  the  press  in  this  particular,  forgetting 
that,  under  the  very  conditions  of  its  existence,  a 
popular  press  is  never  likely  to  do  more  than  re- 
flect the  current  opinion  of  the  hour.  But  it  ought 
not  to  be  possible  to  expect  too  much  from  those 
other  institutions,  like  the  college  and  the  church, 
whose  very  position  and  claims  demand  that,  in  all 
2  17 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

greater  interests,  they  shall  lead  and  not  follow, 
and  that  in  every  crisis  of  national  history  they 
shall  have  a  voice  which  is  the  echo  neither  of  the 
tyrant  nor  of  the  mob,  but  rather  a  note  of  that 
eternal  harmony  —  the  harmony  of  law  and  order 
—  and  the  eternal  righteousness,  "  whose  seat,"  as 
Hooker  tells  us,  "  is  in  the  bosom  of  God."  And  a 
patriot  who  sincerely  loves  his  country  will  be  ap- 
prehensive most  of  all  when  he  sees  disseminated 
from  whatever  source,  but  preeminently  when  he 
sees  it  disseminated,  whether  by  precept  or  ex- 
ample, by  those  whom  we  have  called  to  conspic- 
uous civic  responsibilities,  as  a  cardinal  doctrine 
of  our  republican  institutions,  that  in  the  strife  for 
power,  any  party,  whether  it  seeks  to  rule  in  a 
Board  of  Aldermen  or  in  the  high  places  of  the 
nation,  is  competent  to  dismiss  from  its  regard  any 
substantial  consideration,  whether  for  the  princi- 
ples of  equity  or  the  practices  of  common  honesty. 
Happily,  a  situation  so  gi'ave  has  in  it  elements 
of  alarm  which  cannot  easily  be  barren  of  some 
good  result.  We  are  at  the  extreme,  wise  men  tell 
us,  of  a  drift  which  became  well-nigh  inevitable  as 
a  result  of  the  vicious  forces  generated  in  connec- 
tion with  our  great  civil  war.  And  if  the  nation 
is  strong  enough  to  survive  that  innermost  dete- 
rioration which  has  threatened  and  is  threatening 
the  foundations  of  character  among  us,  it  will  be 
stronger  still  because  of  the  victory  which  it  has 
won  over  its  un worthier  self.  For  one,  I  rejoice 
to  believe  it ;  but  if  it  is  to  be,  I  am  no  less  per- 
suaded that  it  will  be  because  those  whose  are  the 

i8 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

best  gifts  among  us,  the  stewardship  of  the  highest 
truths,  and  the  abiUty  to  translate  those  truths  in- 
to a  language,  in  the  old  English  phrase,  "under- 
standed  of  the  people,"  have  recognized  their  great 
trust  and  their  obligation  to  discharge  it.  In  other 
words,  men  and  brethren  of  the  fellowship  of  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa,  it  would  be  an  imposition  upon 
your  patience  to  detain  you  here  while  I  attempted 
to  point  out  to  you  some  typical  dangers  of  the 
state,  if  I  did  not  make  haste  to  urge  upon  you 
the  duty  of  the  scholar  with  regard  to  them.  How 
far  apart  —  I  can  easily  imagine  it  —  must  seem  to 
many  a  cultivated  mind  to  which  I  am  permitted 
to  address  myself  this  morning,  the  uninviting 
lines  along  which  I  have  ventured  to  lead  you, 
and  this  calm  retreat,  these  academic  shades,  this 
learned  and  stately  retirement!  Why  intrude 
upon  us  here,  it  may  be  asked,  a  theme  so  dis- 
tasteful and  facts  so  painful  as  those  which  you 
have  abused  our  courtesy  by  reciting?  Leave  par- 
tizan  issues  to  partizan  strife,  and  the  spots  on 
our  national  sun  to  those  who  care  to  turn  their 
telescopes  that  way!  Here  within  this  classic 
horizon  let  us  seclude  our  little  world,  from  which 
the  noisy  echoes  and  the  tainted  airs  of  that  other 
are  carefully  shut  out. 

The  phraseology  may  seem  exaggerated,  but  not, 
I  think,  that  attitude  of  many  learned  men  which 
it  describes.  To  hold  one's  self  aloof,  not  alone 
from  contacts,  but  from  questions  which  imme- 
diately concern  the  public  welfare,  is  a  temptation 
to  which  I  fear  the  scholar  is  too  often  wont  to 

19 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

yield.  Amid  the  noisy  clamor  of  some  personal 
contest  for  place  or  power,  he  pierces  the  dust  of 
the  arena  and  sees  the  greater  issues  that  lie  be- 
yond. To  awaken  interest  in  these,  to  secure  even 
an  intelligent  appreciation  of  them,  he  has  found 
so  difficult  and  so  unprofitable  a  task  that  he  has 
long  ago  abandoned  it  in  despair.  And  yet  here, 
I  am  profoundly  persuaded,  is  a  preeminent  voca- 
tion of  the  scholar  in  oui'  time.  There  are  those 
who  would  despair  of  the  people;  but  no  Amer- 
ican who  remembers  his  country's  history  will 
dare  to  do  that.  For  he  never  will  forget  that  it 
was  in  moments  through  which  many  of  us  here 
have  lived,  when  the  destinies  of  the  Eepublic 
trembled  in  the  scale,  that  it  was  some  mighty 
increment  of  courage  and  of  resolution  cast  into  it 
by  the  voice  and  hand  of  the  people  that  tui-ned 
that  scale  on  the  side  of  duty  and  of  honor.  It 
was  a  chief  greatness  of  that  remarkable  man 
whom  God  gave  to  this  nation  in  its  supreme  hour 
of  danger  that  he  was  so  sensitive  to  this;  and, 
believe  me,  that  in  which,  under  Grod,  he  trusted 
will  not  fail  us  now. 

But  there  was  never  a  time  in  our  national 
history  when  what  I  may  call  the  national,  as 
opposed  to  partizan,  or  sectional,  or  personal 
sentiment,  more  urgently  needed  to  be  not  alone 
recognized  and  appealed  to,  but  educated.  We  are 
grappling  to-day  with  questions  which  to  a  great 
many  Americans  are  unfamiliar,  and  to  many 
more  at  first  glance  only  partially  intelligible.  The 
remoter  issues  of  policies  which  are  full  of  spe- 

20 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

cious  appeals  to  personal  interests,  to  the  senti- 
ment of  national  gratitude,  to  the  triumphs  of 
men  and  measures  long  associated  in  many  ear- 
nest and  honest  minds  with  much  that  is  noblest 
in  our  history  —  these  remoter  issues  are  very  of- 
ten either  not  recognized  at  all  or  gi-avely  misun- 
derstood. And  here  is  the  place  in  our  day  for  the 
patriot  who  is  a  scholar ! 

For,  whatever  may  be  the  limitations  of  other 
men,  three  forms  of  service  for  the  state  are 
equally  competent  to  educated  men,  and  each  one 
of  them  is  of  signal  importance. 

It  is  the  function  of  learning  accurately  to  ob- 
serve and  discriminate.  Trained  intellectual  facul- 
ties, like  highly  educated  senses,  are  preeminently 
of  use  in  distinguishing  between  appearances  and 
facts.  On  the  bridge  of  an  ocean  steamer  stands  a 
man  whose  natural  eyesight,  it  may  be,  is  not  so 
good  as  yours  or  mine.  But  long  experience  has 
given  to  him  a  facility  in  calculating  distances,  in 
detecting  the  significance  of  aspects  of  the  sea  or 
the  sky,  and,  in  innumerable  ways,  of  interpreting 
the  warnings  of  nature  which  to  you  and  me  is 
simply  impossible.  In  the  same  way,  disparage 
culture  as  men  may,  Matthew  Arnold  has  aptly 
reminded  us  that 

there  is  a  view  in  which  all  the  love  of  our  neighbor, 
the  impulses  towards  action,  help,  and  beneficence,  the  de- 
sire for  removing  human  error,  clearing  human  confu- 
sion, and  diminishing  human  misery,  the  noble  aspiration 
to  leave  the  world  better  and  happier  than  we  found  it  — 
motives  eminently  such  as  are  social,  come  in  as  part  of 
2*  21 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

the  grounds  of  culture,  and  tlie  main  and  preeminent 
part.  1 

"The  desire  for  removing  human  error."  Do 
people  of  trained  minds  ever  stop  to  realize  the 
misapprehension  concerning  the  elementary  truths 
of  political,  social,  and  moral  science  that  exists 
in  minds  that  are  untrained!  Year  after  year 
the  most  flagrant  heresies  in  these  domains  dress 
themselves  up  in  a  new  guise,  find  a  new  and 
more  daring  prophet,  and  are  hailed  by  multi- 
tudes as  the  message  of  a  new  Evangel.  Con- 
sider alone  the  more  popular  phases  of  socialism 
as  they  have  been  promulgated  in  our  own  day, 
and  the  fallacies  that  have  stalked  up  and  down 
unchallenged  by  those  who  should  have  been  the 
first  to  detect  and  expose  them.  In  his  "Wealth 
of  Nations"  Adam  Smith  discusses,  as  some  of 
you  will  remember,  the  subject  of  public  endow- 
ments for  education,  and  indicates  his  disesteem 
for  such  a  system  by  observing  that  the  "discipline 
of  colleges  and  universities  is,  in  general,  con- 
trived, not  for  the  benefit  of  the  students,  but  for 
the  interest,  or  more  properly  for  the  ease,  of  the 
masters."  We  know  that,  however  ti'ue  such  a 
charge  may  have  been  in  other  days,  it  is  not  now, 
nor  ever  has  been,  true  among  us.  But  when  we 
come  to  pass  beyond  both  these  privileged  classes, 
the  masters  and  the  students,  to  that  larger  con- 
stituency of  which  after  all  they  form,  and  must 
for  some  time  to  come  form,  a  very  inconsiderable 
part,  then  the  question  becomes  a  very  serious  one: 

1 ' '  Culture  and  Anarchy,"  p.  7. 
22 


Tbe  Scholar  and  the  State 

"  How  far  are  our  better-trained  minds  employing 
their  attainments  in  the  service  of  their  fellow- 
m.en,  for  the  discernment  and  detection  and  ex- 
posure of  popular  errors?"  The  subject,  as  you 
will  see,  is  a  very  large  one,  and  I  can  at  this 
point  do  no  more  than  barely  suggest  it. 

And  then,  in  the  interpretation  of  the  truth. 
No  generation,  it  may  freely  be  owned,  has  done 
more  than  om*  own  for  the  popularization  of  know- 
ledge. And  yet  there  remains,  in  this  direction,  an 
empire  to  be  possessed  of  which  few  of  us  have 
any  adequate  conception.  I  recall  at  this  moment 
a  distinguished  teacher,  officially  connected,  as  I 
may  not  forget,  with  this  University,  to  whom  not 
alone  the  sons  of  Harvard,  but  all  patriotic  Amer- 
icans will  gladly  own  themselves  as  at  any  rate  in 
what  may  be  called  the  popularization  of  scientific 
as  distinguished  from  unscientific  knowledge,  pre- 
eminently indebted,  and  I  venture  to  think  that, 
for  a  long  time  to  come,  in  both  hemispheres.  Dr. 
David  A.  Wells  will  be  recognized  as,  in  a  depart- 
ment of  learning  fruitful  in  fallacies  and  half 
views,  a  true  interpreter  and  disseminator  of  the 
truth.  It  is  the  office  which  such  an  one  performs 
in  one  department  of  those  branches  of  sound 
learning  which  have  to  do  with  the  being  and  the 
well-being  of  the  whole  country  that  we  need  to 
have  performed  in  all. 

And  still  above  this,  I  venture  to  think,  is 
that  highest  duty  of  the  scholar  to  the  state,  which 
consists  in  his  active  participation,  at  whatever 
cost,  in  all  that  concerns  her  highest  interests,  and 

23 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

in  his  scrupulous  discharge,  amid  whatever  dis- 
couragements, of  the  duties  of  citizenship.  In  the 
volume  by  Matthew  Arnold  from  which  I  have 
just  quoted,  the  writer  finds  provocation  for  much 
that  he  has  to  say  in  some  contemptuous  expres- 
sions by  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison.^ 

Perhaps  the  very  silliest  cant  of  the  day  [said  Mr. 
Harrison]  is  the  cant  about  culture.  Culture  is  a  de- 
sirable quahty  in  a  critic  of  new  books,  and  sits  well  on 
a  professor  of  belles-lettres ;  but,  as  apphed  to  pohtics,  it 
means  simply  a  turn  for  small  fault-finding,  love  of  self- 
ish ease,  and  indecision  in  action.  The  man  of  culture 
in  politics  is  one  of  the  poorest  mortals  ahve.  For 
simple  pedantry  and  want  of  good  sense  no  man  is  his 
equal.  No  assumption  is  too  unreal,  no  end  too  unprac- 
tical for  him.  But  the  active  exercise  of  pohtics  requires 
common  sense,  sympathy,  trust,  resolution,  and  enthu- 
siasm, qualities  which  your  man  of  culture  has  care- 
fully rooted  up  lest  they  damage  the  dehcacy  of  his 
critical  olfactories.  Perhaps  men  of  culture  are  the  only 
class  of  responsible  beings  who  cannot  with  safety  be 
intrusted  with  power. 

To  some  of  us  this  kind  of  speech  has  a  curi- 
ously familiar  sound,  though  I  venture  to  think 
that  taken  by  itself  it  would  hardly  have  occurred 
to  us  to  suspect  that  it  had  so  respectable  a  source. 
But,  however  that  may  be,  the  suggestion  which  it 
conveys  is  as  vicious  as  its  substance  is  untrue. 
For  its  suggestion  is  plainly  this :  that  the  man  of 
ideas  and  of  various  information,  being  unfitted 
thereby  for  concern  for  the  highest  of  all  present 

IF.  Harrison.     Quoted  in  " Culture  and  Anarchy,"  p.  2. 
24 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

interests,  must  take  notice  that  his  business  is  to 
let  all  such  interests  alone.  There  could  not  well 
be  a  more  dangerous  or  destructive  doctrine.  It 
is  science,  after  all,  that,  when  some  foul  sewer 
poisons  a  city's  life,  flashes  its  unerring  rays  into 
the  heart  of  the  festering  evil,  and  reveals  it  in  all 
its  native  loathsomeness.  And  it  must  be  forever 
the  voices  and  the  presence,  in  all  the  complex 
business  of  making  laws,  and  determining  policies, 
and  choosing  those  who  shall  enact  the  laws  and 
shall  administer  them,  of  men  of  trained  minds, 
which  alone  can  sweeten  the  air  and  purify  the 
sources  of  a  gi'eat  people's  life. 

And  so,  always  and  everywhere,  carrying  as  he 
goes  into  whatever  contacts  and  enterprises  as  a 
sacred  trust  all  best  knowledge  and  all  tried  wis- 
dom, it  is  the  vocation  of  the  scholar  who  would 
discharge  his  duty  to  the  state  to  write,  to  talk,  to 
vote ;  by  whatever  agency  that  is  legitimate  to  his 
calling  and  his  opportunity,  to  make  himself  felt 
as  a  power  on  the  side  of  a  fearless  love  of  truth 
and  an  honest  search  for  light.  Rub  against  other 
men,  my  brother  who  art  just  emerging  from,  or 
hast  long  lingered  in,  your  cloister  and  among 
your  books.  Learn  of  human  nature,  without  a 
knowledge  of  which  no  man  is  greatly  fitted  to 
serV'C  or  help  his  fellows.  But  carry  with  you  the 
Ithmiel  spear  of  fearless  challenge  with  which  a 
genuine  culture  will  not  fail  to  equip  you,  and 
never  be  ashamed  to  use  it. 

These  suggestions  point  (as  it  seems,  at  least,  to 
one  who  must  needs  be  concerned  with  the  prac- 

25 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

tical  applications  of  great  forces)  to  an  opportu- 
nity for  this  honorable  fellowship,  which  I  hope  I 
may  at  least  be  pardoned  for  suggesting.  The 
community  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  is  supposed 
to  represent  the  flower  of  our  American  colleges. 
For  now  more  than  a  century  it  has  enrolled 
among  its  associates  those  whose  gifts  and  attain- 
ments have  earned  for  them,  during  their  college 
life,  the  highest  recognition.  Surely  such  distinc- 
tion ought  to  illustrate  itself  in  unselfish  service 
for  the  state.  From  this  no  preoccupation  with 
other  cares  can  wholly  excuse  any  one  of  us ;  and 
it  is  impossible  not  to  own  that  in  such  a  trained 
force,  if  once  it  should  arouse  itself  to  its  oppor- 
tunity, the  highest  interests  of  the  nation  might 
rightly  look  to  find  theu-  best  defenders.  It  is  not 
criticism,  merely,  or  largely,  that  we  want,  nor  is 
it  organization.  Of  the  latter,  with  its  easy  loss  of 
the  sense  of  personal  responsibility,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  we  have  not  too  much  already.  It  is  in- 
dividual service,  personal  influence,  the  sense  of 
solitary  responsibility,  the  outspoken  word,  the 
courageous  stand,  the  helpful  suggestion  or  warn- 
ing, whenever  these  may  dispel  ignorance,  or 
strengthen  resistance  to  evil,  or  stimulate  to  hon- 
est endeavor.  There  is  a  great  host  of  patriotic 
well-wishers  of  their  countiy  all  over  the  land  who 
honestly  beheve  in  her  great  destiny  and  earnestly 
desire  to  serve  her.  And  these  are  they  whom  the 
trained  minds  of  those  who,  as  Bacon  wrote,  have 
been  trained  to  master  the  problems  that  concern 
a  nation's  best  life  by  "  thinking  through "  them 

26 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

can  often  and  greatly  serve.  But  to  do  so  they 
must  be  willing  to  sacrifice  something  of  their 
leisure  and  something  more  of  their  love  of  ease. 
They  will  not  always  or  often,  perhaps,  find  such 
service  a  pleasant  task,  but  they  will  not  fail 
sooner  or  later  to  find  it  a  fruitful  one.  There  will 
be  those  who  will  be  eager  to  denounce  the  pessi- 
mism of  a  patriot  who  has  not  learned  to  echo 
the  shameless  cry,  "Our  party  and  our  country, 
right  or  wrong."  But  all  thoughtful  and  ingen- 
uous minds  will  own  that  in  the  domain  of  pa- 
triotism he  and  he  alone  is  a  pessimist  who  de- 
spairs, not  of  bad  men,  but  of  the  worth  of  any 
appeal  to  good  ones,  who  is  without  faith  in  men's 
nobler  instincts  of  truth  and  honor,  who  reckons 
all  manhood  as  equally  base  and  purchasable  and 
corrupt,  who  dismisses  every  regard  for  those  chi- 
valric  aspirations  which  alone  have  made  men  or 
nations  great,  as  so  much  irrelevant  sentimental- 
ism,  and  who  would  appeal  in  the  strifes  of  party 
only  to  that  in  human  nature  which  is  the  most  ig- 
noble and  unworthy.  Surely  this  is  pessimism, 
this  despair  of  virtue,  and  goodness,  and  of  the  ob- 
ligations of  duty,  the  rankest  and  most  faithless. 

And  with  such  a  temper  nothing  can  be  more 
essentially  inconsistent  than  the  training  and  ac- 
quirements of  the  scholar.  For  he  knows,  as 
indeed  the  most  superficial  student  of  history  may 
know,  the  power  of  ideas  in  the  hearts  and  on  the 
lips  of  the  few,  profoundly  believed,  courageously 
uttered,  persistently  urged,  to  leaven  and  lift  up 
the  many.    There  are  names  enduringly  associated 

2^ 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

with  this  University,  and  others  bound  up  with  the 
history  of  this  commonwealth  and  this  Republic, 
that  clamor  for  mention  as  I  repeat  those  words. 
But  I  need  not  rehearse  them.  From  Winthrop  to 
Hancock,  from  Adams  to  Sumner,  all  the  way  on, 
you  know  them  better  than  I.  And  what  do  they 
say  to  you  and  me,  my  brothers  ?  This,  this,  they 
say: 

Yours  is  the  heritage ;  your  country's  best  things ;  her 
best  gifts,  her  ripest  acquirements,  her  noblest  vantage- 
ground.  Use  them  worthily  of  yom*  great  past  and  of 
the  promise  of  a  still  greater  future.  The  world,  and 
above  all  our  Western  world,  waits  for  the  voices  of  men 
who  have  learned  to  love  the  truth  and  are  not  afraid  to 
bear  witness  to  it.  And  your  country,  she  bids  you  to 
remember  that  all  you  have  and  are  you  hold  as  a  trust 
for  her.  The  great  idea  of  a  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  she  bids  you  never  to 
forget,  can  find  its  worthy  realization  only  when  it  is  the 
government  of  an  upright  and  enhghtened  people,  by 
upright  and  enhghtened  servants,  rooted  in  the  high 
purpose  of  loyalty  to  duty  and  to  God! 

For  such  a  nation  what  service  can  be  too  pain- 
ful, what  sacrifice  too  costly !  Once,  not  so  long 
ago,  she  called  on  some  of  her  sons  to  die  for  her, 
and  now  she  calls  upon  all  of  them  not  to  die,  but 
to  live  for  her — witnessing,  at  whatever  cost  of 
scorn  and  obloquy,  for  all  things  pure,  and  true, 
and  honest,  and  of  good  report !  Again  I  ask,  is 
her  demand  too  large  ?  Let  another,  even  one  of 
your  own  poets,^  a  jewel  in  the  diadem  of  Amer- 

1  James  Russell  Lowell. 
28 


The  Scholar  and  the  State 

ica's  choicest  scholarship,  and  a  civic  servant,  hon- 
ored in  two  hemispheres,  make  answer  for  you : 

O  beautiful,  my  country !     Ours  once  more  ! 

Smoothing  thy  gold  of  war- dishevelled  hair, 

O'er  such  sweet  brows  as  never  other  wore, 
And  letting  thy  set  hps, 
Freed  from  wrath's  pale  echpse, 

The  rosy  edges  of  their  smile  lay  bare. 

What  words  divine  of  lover  or  of  poet 

Could  tell  our  love  and  make  thee  know  it, 

Among  the  nations  bright  beyond  compare  ? 

What  were  our  hves  without  thee  ? 

What  all  our  hves  to  save  thee  ? 

We  reek  not  what  we  gave  thee ; 

We  will  not  dare  to  doubt  thee ; 

But  ask  whatever  else,  and  we  will  dare ! 


29 


CHARACTER  IN  STATESMANSHIP 

THE   ADDRESS 

Delivered  at  St.  Paul's  Chapel,  N.  Y.,  on  Tuesday,  April  30,  \i 
Being  the  One  Hundredth  Anniversary  of  the  Inaugu- 
ration OF  George  Washington 


CHARACTER  IN  STATESMANSHIP 


ONE  hundred  years  ago  there  knelt  within 
these  walls  a  man  to  whom,  above  all  others 
in  its  history,  this  nation  is  indebted.  An  Eng- 
lishman by  race  and  lineage,  he  incarnated  in  his 
own  person  and  character  every  best  trait  and  at- 
tribute that  have  made  the  Anglo-Saxon  name  a 
glory  to  its  children  and  a  terror  to  its  enemies 
throughout  the  world.  But  he  was  not  so  much 
an  Englishman  that,  when  the  time  came  for  him 
to  be  so,  he  was  not  even  more  an  American ;  and 
in  all  that  he  was  and  did,  a  patriot  so  exalted, 
and  a  leader  so  great  and  wise,  that  what  men 
called  him  when  he  came  here  to  be  inaugurated 
as  the  first  President  of  the  United  States  the 
civihzed  world  has  not  since  then  ceased  to  call 
him  — the  Father  of  his  Country. 

We  are  here  this  morning  to  thank  God  for  so 
great  a  gift  to  this  people,  to  commemorate  the 
incidents  of  which  this  day  is  the  one-hundi'edth 
anniversary,  and  to  recognize  the  responsibilities 
which  a  century  so  eventful  has  laid  upon  us. 

3  33 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

And  we  are  here  of  all  other  places,  first  of 
all,  with  preeminent  appropriateness.  I  know  not 
how  it  may  be  with  those  to  whom  all  sacred 
things  and  places  are  matters  of  equal  indifference, 
but  surely  to  those  of  us  with  whom  it  is  other- 
wise it  cannot  be  without  profound  and  pathetic 
import  that  when  the  fii'st  President  of  the  Repub- 
lic had  taken  upon  him,  by  virtue  of  his  solemn 
oath  pronounced  in  the  sight  of  the  people,  the 
heavy  burden  of  its  Chief  Magistracy,  he  turned 
straightway  to  these  walls,  and  kneehng  in  yonder 
pew,  asked  Grod  for  strength  to  keep  his  promise 
to  the  nation  and  his  oath  to  him.  This  was  no 
unwonted  home  to  him,  nor  to  a  large  proportion 
of  those  eminent  men  who,  with  him,  were  asso- 
ciated in  framing  the  Constitution  of  these  United 
States.  Children  of  the  same  spiritual  mother 
and  nurtured  in  the  same  Scriptural  faith  and 
order,  they  were  wont  to  carry  with  them  into 
their  public  deliberation  something  of  the  same 
reverent  and  conservative  spirit  which  they  had 
learned  within  these  walls,  and  of  which  the  youth- 
ful and  ill-regulated  fervors  of  the  new-born  Re- 
public often  betrayed  its  need.  And  he,  their 
leader  and  chief,  while  singularly  without  cant,  or 
formalism,  or  pretense  in  his  religious  habits,  was 
penetrated,  as  we  know  well,  by  a  profound  sense 
of  the  dependence  of  the  Repubhc  upon  a  guidance 
other  than  that  of  man,  and  of  his  own  need  of  a 
strength  and  com'age  and  wisdom  greater  than  he 
had  in  himself. 

And  so,  with  inexpressible  tenderness  and  rev- 

34 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

erence  we  find  ourselves  thinking  of  him  here, 
kneeling  to  ask  such  gifts,  and  then  rising  to  go 
forth  to  his  great  tasks  with  mien  so  august  and 
majestic  that  Fisher  Ames,  who  sat  beside  him  in 
this  chapel,  wrote,  "  I  was  present  in  the  pew  with 
the  President,  and  must  assure  you  that,  after 
making  all  deductions  for  the  delusions  of  one's 
fancy  in  regard  to  characters,  I  still  think  of  him 
mth  more  veneration  than  for  any  other  person." 
So  we  think  of  him,  I  say;  and  indeed  it  is  im- 
possible to  think  otherwise.  The  modern  student 
of  history  has  endeavored  to  tell  us  how  it  was 
that  the  service  in  this  chapel  which  we  are  striv- 
ing to  reproduce  came  about.  The  record  is  not 
without  obscurity,  but  of  one  thing  we  may  be 
sure  —  that  to  him  who  of  that  goodly  company 
who  a  hundred  years  ago  gathered  within  these 
walls  was  chief,  it  was  no  empty  form,  no  decorous 
affectation.  Events  had  been  too  momentous,  the 
hand  of  a  heavenly  providence  had  been  too  plain, 
for  him,  and  the  men  who  were  grouped  about 
him  then,  to  misread  the  one  or  mistake  the  other. 
The  easy  levity  with  which  their  children's  chil- 
dren debate  the  facts  of  Grod,  and  duty,  and  eter- 
nal destiny  was  as  impossible  to  them  as  faith  and 
reverence  seem  to  be,  or  to  be  in  danger  of  be- 
coming, to  many  of  us.  And  so  we  may  be  very 
sure  that,  when  they  gathered  here,  the  air  was 
hushed,  and  hearts  as  well  as  heads  were  bent  in 
honest  supplication. 

For,  after  all,  their  great  experiment  was  then, 
in    truth,  but    just   beginning.    The   memorable 

35 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

days  and  deeds  wMch  had  preceded  it — the  strug- 
gle for  independence,  the  delicate  and,  in  many 
respects,  more  difficult  struggle  for  Union,  the  har- 
monizing of  the  various  and  often  apparently  con- 
flicting interests  of  rival  and  remote  States  and 
sections,  the  formulating  and  adopting  of  the 
National  Constitution — all  these  were,  after  all, 
but  introductory  and  preparatory  to  the  great  ex- 
periment itself.  It  has  been  suggested  that  we 
may  wisely  see  in  the  event  which  we  celebrate  to- 
day an  illustration  of  those  great  principles  upon 
which  all  governments  rest, —  of  the  continuity 
of  the  Chief  Magistracy,  of  the  corporate  life  of 
the  nation  as  embodied  in  its  Executive,  of  the 
transmission,  by  due  succession,  of  authority,  and 
the  like ;  of  all  of  which,  doubtless,  in  the  history 
of  the  last  one  hundi*ed  years  we  have  an  interest- 
ing and,  on  the  whole,  inspiring  example. 

But  it  is  a  somewhat  significant  fact  that  it  is 
not  along  lines  such  as  these  that  that  enthusiasm 
which  has  flamed  out  during  these  recent  days  and 
weeks,  as  this  anniversary  has  approached,  has 
seemed  to  move.  The  one  thing  that  has,  I  imag- 
ine, amazed  a  good  many  cynical  and  pessimistic 
people  among  us  is  the  way  in  which  the  ardor  of 
a  great  people's  love  and  homage  and  gratitude 
has  kindled,  not  before  the  image  of  a  mechanism, 
but  of  a  man.  It  has  been  felt  with  an  unerring 
intuition  which  has,  once  and  again  and  again  in 
human  history,  been  the  attribute  of  the  people 
as  distinguished  from  the  doctrinaires,  the  theo- 
rists, the  system-makers,  that  that  which  makes  it 

3^ 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

worth  while  to  commemorate  the  inauguration  of 
George  Washington  is  not  merely  that  it  is  the 
consummation  of  the  nation's  struggle  toward 
organic  life,  not  merely  that  by  the  initiation  of 
its  Chief  Executive  it  set  in  operation  that  Con- 
stitution of  which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  declared,  "  as 
far  as  I  can  see,  the  American  Constitution  is  the 
most  wonderful  work  ever  struck  off  at  one  time 
by  the  brain  and  purpose  of  man";  but  that  it 
celebrates  the  beginning  of  an  administration 
which,  by  its  lofty  and  stainless  integrity,  by  its 
absolute  superiority  to  selfish  or  secondary  mo- 
tives, by  the  rectitude  of  its  daily  conduct  in  the 
face  of  whatsoever  threats,  blandishments,  or  com- 
binations, rather  than  by  the  ostentatious  phari- 
seeism  of  its  professions,  has  taught  this  nation 
and  the  world  forever  what  the  Christian  ruler  of 
a  Christian  people  ought  to  be. 

I  yield  to  no  man  in  my  veneration  for  the  men 
who  framed  the  compact  under  which  these  States 
are  bound  together.  No  one  can  easily  exaggerate 
their  services  or  the  value  of  that  which  they 
wi'ought  out.  But,  after  all,  we  may  not  forget 
to-day  that  the  thing  which  they  made  was  a  dead 
and  not  a  living  thing.  It  had  no  power  to  inter- 
pret itself,  to  apply  itself,  to  execute  itself.  Splen- 
did as  it  was  in  its  complex  and  forecasting 
mechanism,  instinct  as  it  was,  in  one  sense,  with 
a  noble  wisdom,  with  a  large-visioned  statesman- 
ship, with  a  matchless  adaptability  to  untried 
emergencies,  it  was,  nevertheless,  no  different  in 
another  aspect  from  one  of  those  splendid  spe- 
8*  37 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

cimens  of  naval  architecture  which  throng  our 
wharves  to-day,  and  which,  with  every  best  con- 
trivance of  human  art  and  skill,  with  capacities  of 
progress  which  newly  amaze  us  every  day,  are  but 
as  impotent,  dead  matter,  save  as  the  brain  and 
hand  of  man  shall  summon  and  command  them. 
"The  ship  of  state,"  we  say.  Yes;  but  it  is  the 
cool  and  competent  mastery  at  the  hehn  of  that, 
as  of  every  other  ship,  which  shall,  under  God,  de- 
termine the  glory  or  the  ignominy  of  the  voyage. 

Never  was  there  a  truth  which  more  sorely 
needed  to  be  spoken !  A  generation  which  vaunts 
its  descent  from  the  founders  of  the  Republic 
seems  largely  to  be  in  danger  of  forgetting  their 
preeminent  distinction.  They  were  few  in  num- 
bers, they  were  poor  in  worldly  possessions — the 
sum  of  the  fortune  of  the  richest  among  them 
would  afford  a  fine  theme  for  the  scorn  of  the 
plutocrat  of  to-day;  but  they  had  an  invincible 
confidence  in  the  truth  of  those  principles  in 
which  the  foundations  of  the  Republic  had  been 
laid,  and  they  had  an  unselfish  purpose  to  main- 
tain them.  The  conception  of  the  National  Gov- 
ernment as  a  huge  machine,  existing  mainly  for 
the  purpose  of  rewarding  partizan  service — this 
was  a  conception  so  alien  to  the  character  and 
conduct  of  Washington  and  his  associates  that  it 
seems  grotesque  even  to  speak  of  it.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  imagine  the  first  President  of  the 
United  States  confronted  with  some  one  who  had 
ventured  to  approach  him  upon  the  basis  of  what 
are  now  commonly  known  as  "  practical  politics." 

38 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

But  the  conception  is  impossible.  The  loathing, 
the  outraged  majesty  with  which  he  would  have 
bidden  such  a  creature  to  begone,  are  foreshadowed 
by  the  gentle  dignity  with  which,  just  before  his 
inauguration,  replying  to  one  who  had  the  strong- 
est claims  upon  his  friendship,  and  who  had  ap- 
plied to  him  dui'ing  the  progi'ess  of  the  "Presi- 
dential campaign,"  as  we  should  say,  for  the 
promise  of  an  appointment  to  office,  he  wi'ote : 

In  touching  upon  the  more  dehcate  part  of  your  let- 
ter, the  communication  of  which  fills  me  with  real  con- 
cern, I  will  deal  with  you  with  all  that  frankness  which  is 
due  to  friendship,  and  which  I  wish  should  be  a  charac- 
teristic feature  of  my  conduct  thi'ough  life.  .  .  .  Should 
it  he  my  fate  to  administer  the  Government,  I  will  go  to 
the  Chair  under  no  preengagement  of  any  kind  or  nature 
whatever.  And  when  in  it,  I  will,  to  the  best  of  my 
judgment,  discharge  the  duties  of  the  office  with  that  im- 
partiahty  and  zeal  for  the  public  good  ivhich  ought  never 
to  suffer  connections  of  Hood  or  friendship  to  have  the  least 
sway  on  decisions  of  a  public  nature. 

On  this  high  level  moved  the  first  President  of 
the  Republic.  To  it  must  we  who  are  the  heirs 
of  her  sacred  interests  be  not  unwilling  to  ascend, 
if  we  are  to  guard  our  glorious  heritage ! 

And  this  all  the  more  because  the  perils  which 
confront  us  are  so  much  graver  and  more  porten- 
tous than  those  which  then  impended.  There  is  (if 
we  are  not  afraid  of  the  wholesome  medicine  that 
there  is  in  consenting  to  see  it)  an  element  of  infi- 
nite sadness  in  the  effort  which  we  are  making  to- 
day.   Ransacking  the  annals  of  our  fathers  as  we 

39 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

have  been  doing  for  the  last  few  months,  a  busy 
and  well-meaning  assiduity  would  fain  reproduce 
the  scene,  the  situation  of  an  hundred  years  ago ! 
Vain  and  impotent  endeavor !  It  is  as  though  out 
of  the  lineaments  of  living  men  we  would  fain 
produce  another  Washington.  We  may  disinter 
the  vanished  di-aperies,  we  may  revive  the  stately 
minuet,  we  may  rehabilitate  the  old  scenes;  but 
the  march  of  a  century  cannot  be  halted  or  re- 
versed, and  the  enormous  change  in  the  situation 
can  neither  be  disguised  nor  ignored.  Then  we 
were,  though  not  all  of  us  sprung  from  one  nation- 
ahty,  practically  one  people.  Now,  that  steadily 
deteriorating  process,  against  whose  dangers  a 
great  thinker  of  our  own  generation  warned  his 
countrymen  just  fifty  years  ago,  goes  on,  on  every 
hand,  apace. 

The  constant  importation,  wrote  the  author  of  "  The 
Weal  of  Nations/'  ^  as  now,  in  this  country,  of  the  lowest 
orders  of  people  from  abroad  to  dilute  the  quahty  of  our 
natural  manhood,  is  a  sad  and  beggarly  prostitution  of 
the  noblest  gift  ever  conferred  on  a  people.  Who  shall 
respect  a  people  who  do  not  respect  their  own  blood? 
And  how  shall  a  national  spirit,  or  any  determinate  and 
proportionate  character,  arise  out  of  so  many  low-bred 
associations  and  cross-grained  temperaments,  imported 
from  every  chme?  It  was  indeed  in  keeping  that  Pan, 
who  was  the  son  of  everybody,  was  the  ughest  of  the  gods. 

And  again:  Another  portentous  difference  be- 
tween this  day  and  that  of  which  it  is  the  anni- 

1  Horace  Bushnell. 
40 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

versary  is  seen  in  the  difference  in  the  nature 
and  influence  of  the  forces  that  determine  our 
national  and  pohtical  destiny.  Then,  ideas  ruled 
the  houi'.  To-day,  there  are  indeed  ideas  that 
rule  our  hour,  but  they  must  be  merchantable 
ideas.  The  growth  of  wealth,  the  prevalence  of 
luxury,  the  massing  of  large  material  forces,  which 
by  their  very  existence  are  a  standing  menace  to 
the  freedom  and  integrity  of  the  individual,  the 
infinite  swagger  of  our  American  speech  and  man- 
ners, mistaking  bigness  for  greatness,  and  sadly 
confounding  gain  and  godliness  —  all  this  is  a  con- 
trast to  the  austere  simplicity,  the  unpurchasable 
integrity,  of  the  first  days  and  first  men  of  our  Re- 
public, which  makes  it  impossible  to  reproduce 
to-day  either  the  temper  or  the  conduct  of  our 
fathers.  As  we  turn  the  pages  backward,  and 
come  upon  the  story  of  that  30th  of  April,  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  1789,  there  is  a  certain  stateliness 
in  the  air,  a  certain  ceremoniousness  in  the  man- 
ners, which  we  have  banished  long  ago.  We  have 
exchanged  the  Washingtonian  dignity  for  the  Jef- 
fersonian  simplicity,  which  in  due  time  came  to  be 
only  another  name  for  the  Jacksonian  vulgarity. 
And  what  have  we  gotten  in  exchange  for  it?  In 
the  elder  States  and  dynasties  they  had  the  trap- 
pings of  royalty  and  the  pomp  and  splendor  of  the 
king's  person  to  fill  men's  hearts  with  loyalty. 
Well,  we  have  dispensed  with  the  old  titular  digni- 
ties. Let  us  take  care  that  we  do  not  part  with 
that  tremendous  force  for  which  they  stood!  If 
there  be  not  titular  royalty,  all  the  more  need  is 

41 


Character  in  Statesmanship 

there  for  personal  royalty.  If  there  is  to  be  no  no- 
bility of  descent,  all  the  more  indispensable  is  it 
that  there  should  be  nobility  of  ascent  —  a  char- 
acter in  them  that  bear  rule,  so  fine  and  high  and 
pure  that  as  men  come  within  the  circle  of  its  in- 
fluence, they  involuntarily  pay  homage  to  that 
which  is  the  one  preeminent  distinction,  the  Roy- 
alty of  Virtue ! 

And  that  it  was,  men  and  brethren,  which,  as  we 
turn  to-day  and  look  at  him  who,  as  on  this  morn- 
ing just  an  hundred  years  ago,  became  the  ser- 
vant of  the  Republic  in  becoming  the  Chief  Ruler 
of  its  people,  we  must  needs  own,  conferred  upon 
him  his  divine  right  to  rule.  All  the  more,  there- 
fore, because  the  circumstances  of  his  era  were  so 
little  like  our  own  we  need  to  recall  his  image, 
and,  if  we  may,  not  only  to  commemorate,  but  to 
reproduce  his  virtues.  The  traits  which  in  him 
shone  preeminent,  as  our  own  Irving  has  described 
them,  "  firmness,  sagacity,  an  immovable  justice, 
courage  that  never  faltered,  and  most  of  all  truth 
that  disdained  all  artifices"  —  these  are  character- 
istics in  her  leaders  of  which  the  nation  was  never 
in  more  dire  need  than  now. 

And  so  we  come  and  kneel  at  this  ancient  and 
hallowed  shrine  where  once  he  knelt,  and  ask  that 
Grod  would  graciously  vouchsafe  them.  Here  in 
this  holy  house  we  find  the  witness  of  that  one  in- 
visible Force  which,  because  it  alone  can  rule  the 
conscience,  is  destined,  one  day,  to  rule  the  world. 
Out  from  airs  dense  and  foul  with  the  coarse  pas- 

42 


Character  in  Statesmansbip 

sions  and  coarser  rivalries  of  self-seeking  men,  we 
turn  aside  as  from  the  crowd  and  glare  of  some 
vulgar  highway,  swarming  with  pushing  and  ill- 
bred  throngs,  and  tawdiy  and  clamorous  with  be- 
dizened booths  and  noisy  speech,  into  some  cool 
and  shaded  wood  where  straight  to  heaven  some 
majestic  oak  lifts  its  tall  form,  its  roots  embedded 
deep  among  the  unchanging  rocks,  its  lofty 
branches  sweeping  the  upper  airs,  and  holding 
high  commune  with  the  stars ;  and,  as  we  think  of 
him  for  whom  we  here  thank  God,  we  say,  "  Such 
an  one,  in  native  majesty  he  was  a  ruler,  wise  and 
strong  and  fearless,  in  the  sight  of  God  and  men, 
because  by  the  ennobling  grace  of  God  he  had 
learned,  first  of  all,  to  conquer  every  mean  and 
selfish  and  self-seeking  aim,  and  so  to  rule  him- 
self!"   For 

— What  are  numbers  knit 
By  force  or  custom "?    Man  who  man  would  be 
Must  rule  the  empire  of  himself  —  in  it 
Must  be  supreme,  estabhshing  his  throne 
Of  vanquished  will,  quelhng  the  anarchy 
Of  hopes  and  fears,  being  himself  alone. 

Such  was  the  hero,  leader,  ruler,  patriot,  whom 
we  gratefully  remember  on  this  day.  We  may  not 
reproduce  his  age,  his  young  environment,  nor 
him.  But  none  the  less  may  we  rejoice  that  once 
he  lived  and  led  this  people,  like  him,  that  kingly 
Ruler  and  Shepherd  of  whom  the  Psalmist  sang, 
"with  all  his  power."  God  give  us  the  gi*ace  to 
prize  his  gi*and  example,  and,  as  we  may  in  our 
more  modest  measure,  to  reproduce  his  virtues. 

43 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  AMERICAN   LIFE 

Published  in  the  Forum,  July,   1889 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  AMERICAN  LIFE 


THE  place  of  the  scholar  in  American  life  is 
becoming  a  question  of  increasing  interest 
and  importance.  Nothing  is  more  honorable  to 
those  who  laid  foundations  in  this  land  than  their 
love  of  learning,  and  their  unselfish  zeal,  amid 
many  discouragements,  for  its  promotion.  Not  to 
speak  of  other  evidences  of  this,  the  history  of  our 
earlier  colleges  is  a  witness  to  the  far-seeing  wis- 
dom and  rare  discernment  of  those  who  founded 
them.  It  is  true  that  "the  infection"  of  their 
nobleness  "doth  still  remain"  in  their  descendants, 
and  that  it  is  a  zeal  not  always  tempered  by  dis- 
cretion. There  are,  in  a  single  western  State 
to-day,  some  thirty-seven  colleges,  monuments  of 
well-meant  but  ill-advised  beneficence,  no  one  of 
which,  it  is  safe  to  say,  will  ever  be  likely  to  ren- 
der a  tithe  of  the  service  to  true  learning  which  it 
might  have  rendered  if,  instead  of  thirty-seven 
colleges,  there  had  been  one  or  two.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  a  college,  as  we  are  wont  to  say,  is  to  make 
scholars.    Yes;  but  scholars  with  what  aims  and 

47 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

for  what  uses!    In  a  word,  what  is  the  place  of 
the  scholar  in  American  life  % 

In  attempting  to  answer  that  question,  we 
want,  first  of  all,  to  recognize  that  the  conditions 
of  our  American  life  are  in  almost  every  respect 
unique  and  peculiar.  We  have,  indeed,  celebrated 
the  hundredth  anniversary  of  our  national  exist- 
ence ;  but  what,  after  all,  in  the  history  of  nations 
is  the  brief  space  of  a  century  ?  Still  we  are  raw, 
crude,  unformed,  half-grown.  And  out  of  this 
fact  there  arises  a  certain  necessity  which  creates 
in  its  turn  a  demand  everywhere  urgent  and  im- 
perious. The  first  work  of  a  new  people  in  a  new 
land  is  to  possess  the  earth  and  subdue  it.  They 
are  to  create  a  commerce  and  the  arts  and  manu- 
factures where  before  none  of  these  have  existed. 
They  are  to  subdue  the  wilderness,  to  plant  the 
valleys,  and  to  people  the  hillsides.  They  are  to 
tunnel  the  mountains  for  their  hidden  treasures, 
and  to  rear  the  forges  and  furnaces  which  shall 
convert  those  treasures  into  the  marketable  and 
serviceable  instruments  of  agricultural  and  indus- 
trial life.  And  all  the  while  that  they  are  doing 
this,  they  are  forced  to  recognize  the  superiority 
of  the  man  not  only  of  ideas,  but  of  education, 
over  the  man  without  education.  Sneer  as  some 
people  may  at  the  inferiority  of  the  theorist  to  the 
man  of  practical  experience,  it  does  not  take  a 
great  while  to  teach  the  least  educated  among  us 
that  he  who  knows,  for  instance,  something  more 
of  metals  than  may  be  learned  at  the  mouth  of  a 
blast-furnace  or  in  the  glare  of  a  rolling-mill  has 

48 


The  Scholar  m  American  Life 

a  distinct  advantage  over  him  who  does  not.  And 
so  we  have  a  very  large  class  of  people  who,  how- 
ever little  learned  themselves,  are  frank  to  own 
that  knowledge  is  power,  and  that  the  learning  of 
the  schools  has  its  rightful  place  in  the  acti^dties 
of  a  mannfactm*e  and  in  the  triumphs  of  an  art. 

But  at  this  point  we  are  met  by  a  spirit  which 
it  is  time,  I  think,  that  we  recognize,  as  there  is  a 
need  that  it  should  be  challenged.  We  Americans 
are,  of  all  peoples  under  the  sun,  supremely  a 
practical  people.  No  mechanism  is  invented,  no 
book  is  written,  no  theory  is  propounded,  but  that 
straightway  there  is  heard  a  voice  demanding: 
"  Well,  this  is  all  very  interesting,  very  novel,  very 
eloquent;  but  what,  after  all,  is  the  good  of  it? 
To  what  contrivance,  to  what  enterprise,  can  you 
hitch  this  discovery,  this  vision  of  yours,  and 
make  it  work  ?  How  will  it  push,  pull,  pump,  lift, 
drive,  bore,  so  that,  employed  thus,  it  may  be  a 
veritable  producer?  Yes,  we  want  learning  for 
our  young  men,  our  young  women;  but  how  can 
it  be  converted  by  the  shortest  road  and  in  the 
most  effectual  way  into  a  marketable  product?" 
"The  man  of  the  North,"  says  De  Tocqueville, 
writing  of  our  North,  "has  not  only  experience, 
but  knowledge.  He,  however,  does  not  care  for 
science  as  a  pleasure,  and  only  embraces  it  with 
avidity  when  it  leads  to  useful  applications."  And 
the  worst  of  such  an  indictment  is  the  fact  that  it 
is  still  so  often  true. 

But  if  it  is,  that  surely  is  a  fact  greatly  to  be 
deplored.  Ours  is  an  age  of  the  rapid  growth  of 
4  49 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

wealth,  and  with  it  of  luxury  and  the  ever-great- 
ening  lust  of  wealth.  To  have  money  and  to  build 
with  it  a  fine  house,  to  drive  fine  horses,  and  buy 
fine  pictures,  whether  we  know  who  painted  them, 
or  what  is  in  them  that  makes  them  worth  buying 
— this,  in  our  generation,  has  become  the  chief  am- 
bition of  a  larger  number  of  people  than  ever  be- 
fore. We  look  back  with  something  of  a  fine  con- 
descension upon  those  nations  that  in  other  ages 
spent  their  time  in  warfare  or  the  chase,  and  whose 
history  is  little  more  than  a  record  of  territory 
won  and  lost  and  won  again,  the  whole  being  be- 
smeared with  blood  and  dishonored,  too  often,  by 
plunder  and  rapine ;  and  we  may  well  deplore  the 
barbarism  of  such  ages  and  such  enterprises.  But 
we  may  not  forget,  either,  that  in  these  rude 
struggles  great  ideas  of  right  trembled  sometimes 
in  the  balance,  and  that  men  rode  into  battle,  of- 
ten, because  there  was  a  clansman's  wrong  to  be 
avenged  or  a  serfs  injustice  to  be  righted.  In 
other  words,  there  were  great  instincts  of  liberty, 
of  righteousness,  of  loyalty  to  a  cherished  prin- 
ciple that  struggled  thus  roughly  for  expression, 
and  so  taught  the  world  that  there  were  men  who 
could  prize  a  principle  more  than  peace  or  life, 
and  equity  more  than  gain.  "  We  have  changed 
all  that  nowadays,"  we  say.  Yes,  we  have ;  but 
whether  we  have  altogether  changed  it  for  the 
better  or  not  is  a  question  about  which  at  any  rate 
there  may  at  least  be  two  opinions.  We  are  in 
the  midst  of  the  utilitarian  dispensation,  in  which 
not  only  warfares  of  the  older  sort  are  voted  un- 

50 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

edifying  and  unprofitable,  but  in  which  also  war- 
fares of  another  and  very  different  sort  are  not 
always  looked  at  with  less  impatience  and  distaste. 
Here  is  a  vast  realm  of  ignorance  to  be  conquered 
by  the  assaults  of  the  truth  and  the  right.  On 
every  side  there  open  doors  of  inquiry  which  lead 
into  regions  of  the  unknown.  "  But  what  can  you 
make  by  entering  them  ?  "  This  is  the  cry  of  the 
hour.  "These  studies  of  youi's  in  a  dead  language, 
these  speculations  in  the  domain  of  philosophic 
thought,  these  nightly  star-gazings  through  the 
small  end  of  a  telescope,  what  is  the  good  of  them 
all  ?  Tell  us  that  astronomy  has  a  distinct,  help- 
ful relation  to  navigation,  and  we  can  understand 
that."  Make  it  plain  to  some  rich  man  that  by 
building  an  observatory  he  will  ultimately  make  it 
safer  for  a  ship  loaded  with  hogs  or  shovels  to  sail 
to  Liverpool  or  Calcutta,  and  he  will  put  his  hand 
in  his  pocket ;  but,  "  I  am  a  practical  man,  and  I 
want  a  university  which  shall  give  the  youths  who 
come  to  it  a  practical  education."  This  is  the  pom- 
pous and  plethoric  protest  that  one  hears  until  he 
is  almost  ready  to  declare  that  of  all  detestable  peo- 
ple a  "practical"  man  is  the  most  odiously  and 
thoroughly  detestable. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  speak  of  that  spiritual 
side  of  a  man's  nature  which,  beside  all  other 
aspects  of  it,  must  needs  be  supreme;  but  the 
conditions  of  this  generation  demand  that  we 
should  be  reminded  that,  beyond  bodies  to  be 
clothed,  and  tastes  to  be  cultivated,  and  wealth  to 
be  accumulated,  there  is  in  each  one  of  us  an  in- 

51 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

tellect  to  be  developed,  and,  by  means  of  it,  truth 
to  be  discerned,  wbicli,  beside  all  other  undertak- 
ings to  which  the  mind  of  man  can  bend  itself, 
should  forever  be  foremost  and  supreme.  The 
gratification  of  our  physical  wants,  and  next  to 
that  the  gratification  of  our  personal  vanity  or 
ambition,  may  seem  to  many  people  at  once  the 
chief  end  of  existence  and  the  secret  of  the  truest 
happiness.  But  there  have  been  men  who  have 
neither  sought  nor  cared  for  these  things,  who 
have  found  in  learning  for  its  own  sake  at  once 
their  sweetest  rewards  and  their  highest  dignity. 
Off  our  coast,  as  the  traveler  nears  its  chief  seaport, 
there  is  a  magnificent  light  which  flashes  its  clear 
radiance  across  the  stormy  seas  and  lifts  its  tall 
form  to  be  a  beacon  by  day  and  by  night.  One  can 
imagine  a  New  York  importer  scanning  its  stately 
outlines  with  satisfaction  that  in  it  he  had  one  more 
guarantee  that  his  cargoes  of  silks  or  teas  would 
find  their  way  safe,  to  port.  But  we  can  imagine 
another  voyager  catching  its  welcome  rays  for  the 
first  time  as  he  neared  the  longed-for  shore,  and 
seeing  in  it  the  harbinger  of  that  home  of  love  and 
peace  wherein  dwelt  the  treasures  of  his  best  affec- 
tions. And  we  can  well  believe,  too,  that  he  who 
invented  that  light,  when  at  last  he  saw  the  vision 
of  his  brain  transmuted  into  that  pillar  of  fire  by 
night,  lifted  his  thoughts  in  a  joy  which  was  not 
born  of  the  reflection  that  he  was  to  receive  a 
decoration  from  the  French  government,  or  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  for  his  invention.  For 
it  is  Fresnel  himself,  the  inventor  of  that  splendid 

52 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

lamp  which  gleams  from  the  shores  of  Fire  Island, 
who  once  wi'ote : 

For  a  long  time  that  sensibility,  or  that  vanity,  which 
people  call  love  of  glory,  has  been  much  blunted  in  me. 
I  labor  less  to  catch  the  suffrages  of  the  pubhc  than  to 
obtain  that  inward  approval  which  has  always  been  the 
sweetest  reward  of  my  efforts.  Without  doubt,  in  mo- 
ments of  disgust  or  discouragement  I  have  often  needed 
the  spur  of  vanity  or  of  emolument  to  excite  me  to  my  re- 
searches. But  all  the  compliments  I  have  ever  received 
from  Arago,  Laplace,  and  Biot  never  gave  me  so  much 
pleasure  as  the  discovery  of  a  theoretic  truth  or  the 
confirmation  of  a  calculation  by  expeiiment. 

It  is  a  dark  day  for  any  people  when  they  have 
not  among  them  men  who  can  say  that.  It  is  a 
dark  day  for  any  land  when,  no  matter  what  the 
institutions  that  it  rears  and  the  libraries  that  it 
multiplies,  it  has  not  among  its  students  of  what- 
ever department  of  learning  men  to  whom  the  re- 
wards of  wealth  and  fame,  and  "  practical  results," 
as  these  words  are  ordinarily  used,  are  wholly 
secondary  and  indifferent  considerations.  Indeed, 
it  might  readily  be  shown  that  those  boasted 
practical  results,  of  which  we  Americans  make  so 
much,  would  any  one  of  them  have  been  impos- 
sible, if,  before  the  ingenious  minds  that  have 
turned  our  knowledge  of  whatever  kind  into  so 
many  utilitarian  channels,  there  had  not  gone 
those  other  and  greater  minds  to  whom  the  utili- 
tarian instinct  has  been  wholly  wanting,  but  who 
have  been  those  original  investigators  who  have 
discovered  the  hidden  sources  of  truth  and  brought 

**  53 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

its  precious  ore  to  the  sui'face.  Turn  where  you 
will,  in  literatui'e,  in  art,  in  science,  you  will  find 
those  pioneers  of  inquiry  who  have  asked  the 
primal  questions  on  the  answer  to  which  all  that 
came  after  has  turned.  "What  Cuvier  said  of 
science  is  as  true  of  criticism,  of  philosophy,  of 
theology,  of  mathematics: 

Those  grand  practical  innovations  are  the  mere  apph- 
cations  of  truths  of  a  higher  order,  not  sought  with  any 
practical  intent,  but  which  were  pursued  for  their  own 
sake  and  solely  through  an  ardor  for  knowledge.  Those 
who  apphed  them  could  not  have  discovered  them  j  those 
who  discovered  them  had  no  inchnation  to  pursue  them 
to  a  practical  end.  Engaged  in  the  higher  regions, 
whither  their  thoughts  had  carried  them,  they  hardly  per- 
ceived these  practical  issues,  though  bom  of  their  own 
deeds.  These  rising  workshops,  these  peopled  colonies, 
these  ships  which  furrow  the  sea,  this  luxury,  this  tu- 
mult—  all  this  comes  from  discoverers  in  science,  and 
it  all  remains  strange  to  them.  At  the  point  where 
science  merges  into  practice  they  abandon  it ;  it  concerns 
them  no  more. 

It  is  a  question  for  us,  whether  in  our  American 
life  we  are  to  have  any  place  for  scholars  who  shall 
be  the  like  of  these.  There  are,  indeed,  those  who 
tell  us  that  to  us  belongs  a  task  at  once  vast, 
unique,  and  imperative.  As  in  the  domain  of  law 
we  have  not  invented  a  system  of  our  own,  but 
contented  ourselves  chiefly  with  borrowing  from 
our  English  ancestors,  as  they  in  turn  borrowed 
from  that  Roman  jurisprudence  which  was  ripe 
and  whole  before  England  as  a  nation  had  even 

54 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

begun  to  be,  so  in  the  domain  of  letters,  of  meta- 
physics, of  scientific  investigation,  we  are  bidden 
to  be  content  to  reap  when  others  have  sown,  and 
to  utilize  those  abundant  resoui'ces  which  we  have 
neither  the  leisure  nor  the  learning  to  originate  or 
discover.  Such  a  suggestion  is  not  merely  a  libel 
upon  our  capabilities,  but  it  forebodes  the  death 
of  our  intellectual  life.  "The  futui-e,"  says  De 
Tocqueville,  "will  prove  whether  the  passion  for 
profound  knowledge,  so  rare  and  so  fruitful,  can 
be  born  and  developed  so  readilj^  in  democratic 
societies  as  in  aristocracies."  "  As  for  me,"  he  con- 
tinues, "I  can  hardly  beheve  it."  Do  we  hardly 
believe  it  ?  Is  it  not  time  for  us  to  accept  this 
challenge  of  one  who  was  no  unfriendly  critic,  and 
to  prove  to  the  world  that  there  is  a  place  among 
us  for  a  scholarship  which  does  not  concern  it- 
self with  merely  material  applications  or  seek  for 
merely  material  reward?  It  is  here,  one  cannot 
but  think,  that  the  vocation  of  the  scholar  of  our 
time  becomes  most  plain.  He  is  to  take  his  stand 
and  to  make  his  protest.  With  a  dignity  and  a 
resolution  born  of  the  gi^eatness  of  his  calling  and 
his  opportunities,  he  is  to  spurn  that  low  estimate 
of  his  work  and  its  result  which  measures  them 
by  what  they  have  earned  in  money  or  can  pro- 
duce in  dividends.  Here,  in  his  counting-room 
or  his  warehouse,  sits  the  plutocrat  who  has 
amassed  his  millions,  and  who  can  forecast  the 
fluctuations  of  the  market  with  the  unerring  accu- 
racy of  an  aneroid  barometer.  To  such  a  one 
comes  the  professor  from   some  modest  seat  of 

55 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

learning  among  the  hills,  minded  to  see  his  old 
classmate  of  other  days,  to  grasp  his  hand  again, 
and  to  learn,  if  it  may  be,  how  he  fares.  And 
the  rich  man  looks  down  with  a  bland  conde- 
scension upon  the  school-fellow  who  chose  the 
company  of  his  books  rather  than  the  companion- 
ship of  the  market-place,  and  as  he  notes,  perhaps, 
his  lean  and  Cassius-like  outline,  his  seedy  if  not 
shabby  garb,  and  his  shy  and  rustic  manners, 
smooths  his  own  portly  and  well-clad  person  with 
complacency,  and  thanks  his  stars  that  he  early 
took  to  trade.  Poor  fool!  He  does  not  perceive 
that  his  friend  the  professor  has  most  accurately 
taken  his  measure,  and  that  the  clear  and  kindly 
eyes  that  look  at  him  thi'ough  those  steel-bowed 
spectacles  have  seen  with  something  of  sadness, 
and  something  more  of  compassion,  how  the  finer 
aspirations  of  earlier  days  have  all  been  smothered 
and  quenched.  In  an  age  which  is  impatient  of 
any  voice  that  will  not  cry,  "  Great  is  the  god  of 
railroads  and  syndicates,  and  greater  yet  are  the 
apostles  of  'puts'  and  'calls,'  of  'corners'  and 
'pools'!"  we  want  a  race  of  men  who  by  their 
very  existence  shall  be  a  standing  protest  against 
the  reign  of  a  coarse  materialism  and  a  deluge  of 
greed  and  self-seeking. 

But  to  have  such  a  race  of  men,  we  must  have 
among  us  those  whose  vision  has  been  purged 
and  unsealed  to  see  the  dignity  of  the  scholar's 
calling.  One  may  not  forget  that  among  those 
who  will  soon  go  forth  from  coUege  halls  to  begin 
their  work  in  life  there  must  needs  be  many  to 

56 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

whom  the  nature  of  that  work,  and  in  some  sense 
the  aims  of  it,  are  foreordained  by  the  conditions 
under  which  they  are  compelled  to  do  it.  One 
may  not  forget,  in  other  words,  that,  with  many  of 
us,  the  stern  question  of  earning  our  bread  is  that 
which  most  urgently  challenges  us,  and  which  we 
cannot  hope  to  evade.  But  there  is  no  one  of 
us  who  may  not  wisely  remember  that,  in  the 
domain  of  the  intellect  as  in  the  domain  of 
the  spiritual  and  moral  nature,  "the  life  is  more 
than  meat  and  the  body  than  raiment,"  and  that 
the  hope  of  om*  time,  or  of  any  time,  is  not  in  men 
who  are  concerned  in  what  they  can  get,  but  in 
what  they  can  see.  Frederick  Maurice  has  well 
reminded  us  how  inadequate  is  that  phrase  which 
describes  the  function  of  the  scholar  to  be  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge.  Here  is  a  man  whose 
days  and  nights  are  spent  in  laborious  plodding, 
and  whose  brain,  before  he  is  done  with  life,  be- 
comes a  storehouse  from  which  you  can  draw  out 
a  fact  as  you  would  take  down  a  book  from  the 
shelves  of  a  library.  We  may  not  speak  of  such  a 
scholar  disrespectfully ;  and  in  a  generation  which 
is  impatient  of  plodding  industry,  and  content,  as 
never  before,  with  smart  and  superficial  learning, 
we  may  well  honor  those  whose  rare  acquisitions 
are  the  fruit  of  painful  and  untiring  labor.  But 
surely,  his  is  a  nobler  understanding  of  his  calling 
as  a  scholar  who  has  come  to  see  that,  in  whatso- 
ever department  of  inquiry,  it  is  not  so  much  a 
question  of  how  much  learning  he  is  possessed  of, 
as,  rather,  how  truly  anything  that  he  has  learned 

57 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

has  possessed  Mm.  There  are  men  whose  acqmre- 
ments  in  mere  bulk  and  extent  are,  it  may  be, 
neither  large  nor  profound.  But  when  they  have 
taken  their  powers  of  inquiry  and  investigation 
and  gone  with  them  to  the  shut  doors  of  the  king- 
dom of  knowledge,  they  have  tarried  there  in  still- 
ness and  on  their  knees,  waiting  and  watching  for 
the  light.  And  to  these  has  come,  in  all  ages,  that 
which  is  the  best  reward  of  the  scholar — not  a  fact 
to  be  hung  up  on  a  peg  and  duly  numbered  and 
catalogued,  but  the  vision  of  a  truth  to  be  the  in- 
spiration of  all  their  lives.  It  is  possible  to  sit 
down  before  the  "  Madonna  di  San  Sisto  "  and  dis- 
course glibly  of  the  school  of  Perugino  and  Ra- 
phael, of  the  growth  of  medieval  art  and  its  secret 
of  mixing  colors,  until  your  listener  shall  have 
been  smitten  dumb  with  a  sense  of  his  own  igno- 
rance and  of  your  phenomenal  attainments.  And 
it  is  possible,  too,  to  stand  before  that  incompara- 
ble pictm*e,  a  mere  tyro  in  technical  art,  but  with 
a  soul  so  full  of  awe,  and  an  eye  so  eager  for  a 
vision,  that  the  Child  of  History  shall  seem  to  be 
alive  again,  and  the  mother  that  bore  him  the  mes- 
senger to  your  soul  of  an  imperishable  truth.  The 
parable  is  of  infinite  application  and  of  enduring 
appropriateness.  There  must  be  some  among  us 
who  are  watchers  and  seekers  for  a  vision.  The 
page  of  history  unrolls  its  checkered  scroll,  not 
that  we  may  arrange  its  dates  and  facts  in  parallel 
columns  and  be  able  to  answer  glibly  when  Nero 
reigned  and  when  the  princes  in  the  Tower  were 
murdered;   but  rather  that  we  may  see,  in  the 

58 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

crimes  of  kings  and  the  schemes  of  unscrupulous 
ambitions,  what  forces  have  made  or  marred  the 
men  and  the  races  of  the  past.  Thus  wrote  one  of 
the  most  gifted  minds  of  our  centmy :  ^ 

I  have  no  hope  of  acquiring  exhaustively  even  a  small 
portion  of  the  smallest  history.  But  I  feel  that  I  want 
the  hght  which  history  gives  me ;  that  I  cannot  do  with- 
out it.  I  find  that  I  am  connected  in  my  own  individual 
life  with  a  past  and  a  future  as  well  as  a  present.  I  can- 
not make  either  out  without  the  other.  I  find  that  I  am 
connected  with  a  nation  having  a  past  as  well  as  a  pres- 
ent, and  which  must  have  a  futui'e.  I  am  confident  that 
our  life  is  meant  to  he  a  whole;  that  its  days,  as  the 
poet  says,  should  be  "hnked  to  each  other  in  natural 
piety."  They  fall  to  pieces  very  easily ;  it  is  hard,  often 
it  seems  impossible,  to  recover  the  links  between  them. 
But  there  comes  an  illumination  to  us,  ever  and  anon, 
over  our  past  years,  and  over  the  persons  gone  out  of 
our  sight  who  worked  in  them.  .  .  .  Thus  it  is  with  the 
ages  gone  by.  Every  one  of  them  is  telling  upon  us; 
every  man  who  has  thought  and  worked  in  them  has 
contributed  to  the  good  or  evil  which  is  about  us.  The 
ages  are  not  dead;  they  cannot  be.  If  we  hsten,  they 
will  speak  to  us. 

Yes;  if  we  listen!  And  here  is  the  calling  of 
the  scholar  in  our  time.  In  an  age  which  threatens 
only  to  believe  in  what  it  can  touch  and  grasp,  his 
vocation  it  is  to  trace  the  influence  of  those  un- 
seen forces  which,  whether  in  nature  or  in  society, 
are  the  mightiest  and  most  enduring  of  all.  But 
to  do  this  he  must  first  recognize  the  greatness 

IF.  D.  Maurice,  "Acquisition  and  Illumination,"  p.  358. 

59 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

and  the  dignity  of  his  calling,  and  then  he  must 
not  shrink  from  its  conditions.  In  an  address  be- 
fore the  University  of  St.  Andrews,  Mr.  Fronde 
declared  some  years  ago : 

If  a  son  of  mine  told  me  that  he  wished  to  devote  him- 
self to  intellectual  pursuits,  I  would  act  as  I  should  act 
if  he  wished  to  make  an  imprudent  marriage.  I  would 
absolutely  prohibit  him  for  a  time  till  the  firmness  of  his 
purpose  had  been  tried.  ...  I  would  remind  him  that  in 
all  callings  nothing  great  will  be  produced  if  the  first 
object  be  what  you  can  make  by  them.  I  would  show 
him  that  while  the  present  rule  on  which  authors  are 
paid  is  by  the  page  and  the  sheet,  it  ought  to  be  exactly 
the  reverse  —  not  quantity,  but  quahty.  I  would  remind 
him  that  great  poetry,  great  philosophy,  great  scientific 
discovery,  every  intellectual  production  which  has  ge- 
nius, work,  and  permanence  in  it,  is  the  fruit  of  long 
thought  and  patient  and  painful  elaboration.  I  would 
impress  upon  him  that  work  of  this  kind  done  hastily 
would  be  better  not  done  at  all.  "When  completed,  it 
will  not  be  large,  but  small  in  bulk;  it  will  address  itselE 
for  a  long  time  to  the  few  and  not  to  the  many.  The 
reward  for  it  will  not  be  measurable  and  not  obtainable 
in  money,  except  after  many  generations,  and  when  the 
brain  out  of  which  it  was  spun  has  long  returned  to  its 
dust. 

Is  there  not  profound  wisdom  in  counsel  such  as 
this?  Is  it  not  a  demonstrated  and  indisputable 
truth  that 

Only  by  accident  is  the  work  of  genius  immediately 
popular  in  the  sense  of  being  widely  bought?  No  col- 
lected edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays  was  demanded  in 

60 


The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

Shakespeare's  life.  Milton  received  five  pounds  for  his 
''  Paradise  Lost."  The  distilled  essence  of  the  thought 
of  Bishop  Butler,  the  greatest  prelate  that  England  ever 
produced,  fills  a  moderately-sized  octavo  volume.  Spi- 
noza's works,  including  his  surviving  letters,  fill  but 
thi*ee;  and  though  they  have  revolutionized  the  philoso- 
phy of  Europe,  have  no  attractions  for  the  multitude. 

Surely  the  significance  of  such  facts  as  these  is 
not  hard  to  read.  The  scholarship  that  has  moved 
the  world  has  not  been  the  scholarship  that 
wrought  for  a  guinea  a  page,  or  for  a  thousand 
pounds  a  volume.  It  has  been  the  scholarship 
that  has  been  content  to  be  poor  and  to  be  ac- 
counted obscure,  that  has  not  been  in  haste  to 
speak  or  eager  to  rush  into  print,  but  which  has 
reverenced  supremely  the  truth,  and  has  sought 
for  it  often  with  tears. 

And  such  a  place  and  rank,  lofty,  self -poised,  and 
serene,  is  that  which  should  be  occupied  by  the 
highest  scholarship  of  our  time.  Of  second-rate 
learning,  as  of  handbooks  and  excerpts  and  labo- 
rious but  mechanical  compilations,  we  have  enough 
and  more  than  enough.  To  make  a  book  that 
will  sell;  to  ransack  England  and  Germany  and 
France,  and  with  scissors  and  paste-pot  and  scrap- 
book  to  produce  a  volume  that  will  catch  the 
popular  eye  and  allure  the  vagrant  dollars — with 
all  this  we  are  indeed  sorely  afflicted.  And  yet 
every  now  and  then  there  comes  a  voice  from  out 
some  quiet  retreat  which  tells  of  the  scholar  who 
has  ascended  to  his  true  place  and  is  filling  it  with 
equal  dignity  and  power.    No  noisy  plaudits  may 

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The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

clamor  at  his  heels.  No  swelling  bank-account 
may  witness  to  his  wealth.  But  the  gift  of  vision 
is  his,  and  to  such  a  soul  the  curtain  is  parted  a 
Httle  and  the  light  streams  full  upon  it.  One  may 
not  indeed  forget  that  opportunities  for  these 
highest  tasks  of  scholarship  were,  perhaps,  never 
so  rare  as  to-day.  The  world  does  not  want,  and 
is  too  ignorant  to  perceive  that  it  needs,  the  ser- 
vices of  men  who  can  give  to  learning  its  highest 
place,  and  make  the  class-room  and  the  study  the 
fount  from  which  shall  spring  the  pure  stream 
of  original  thought  and  profound  speculation. 
"Away  with  these  dreamers,"  it  cries,  "and  give 
us  a  serviceable  culture."  And  so  we  see  every 
day  of  our  lives  the  finest  gift  harnessed  to  some 
sordid  drudgery  and  plodding  its  mechanical 
round  because  it  can  be  made  to  pay.  But  may 
we  not  hope  that  a  brighter  day  is  coming  —  a 
day  in  which  scholarship  shall  have  its  true  place 
and  be  lifted  to  its  rightful  sovereignty?  There 
lives  the  story  of  a  slave  in  a  French  galley,  who 
was  one  morning  bending  wearily  over  his  oar, 
just  as  the  day  was  breaking,  revealing,  as  the 
sun  rose  out  of  the  gray  waters,  a  line  of  cliffs,  the 
white  houses  of  a  town,  and  a  church  tower.  The 
rower  was  a  man  unused  to  such  service,  worn 
with  toil  and  watching,  and  likely,  it  was  thought, 
to  die.  A  companion  touched  him,  pointed  to  the 
shore,  and  asked  him  if  he  knew  it.  "Yes,"  he 
answered,  "I  know  it  well.  I  see  the  steeple  of 
that  place  where  God  opened  my  mouth  in  pub- 
lic to  his  glory,  and  I  know  that  how  weak  soever 

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The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

I  now  appear,  I  shall  not  depart  out  of  this  life  till 
my  tongue  glorify  his  name  in  that  same  place." 
Those  white  cliffs  were  the  white  cliffs  of  Scot- 
land, the  speaker  was  John  Knox,  and  we  know 
that  his  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  And  so  he  knows 
who  believes  in  the  nobler  aspirations  and  the 
loftier  possibilities  of  this  great  land  and  race  of 
ours,  that  the  time  will  come  when  the  American 
scholar  will  ascend  to  his  true  place,  and  when,  re- 
leased from  the  toil  of  the  galley-slave,  he  shall 
be  set  free  to  glorify  Grod  and  speak  his  illuminat- 
ing truth,  because  first  of  all  he  has  been  set  free 
from  the  sordid  drudgery  and  coarse  materialism 
which  make  such  speech  impossible.  But,  mean- 
time, it  belongs  to  us  to  ask  ourselves  what  we  can 
do  to  hasten  such  a  day  and  to  give  our  scholars 
and  their  work  their  due  and  rightful  place. 

Two  things  we  need  to  do,  and  they  are  neither 
of  them  beyond  our  reach.  First  of  all,  we  can 
esteem  them  very  highly  in  love  for  their  work's 
sake.  There  is  but  one  true  aristocracy  in  all  the 
world  —  and  it  is  rather  odd  that  the  only  place 
in  which  that  fact  is  recognized  is  China  —  and 
that  is  the  aristocracy  of  character  enriched  by 
learning.  We  want  an  aristocracy  in  America, 
and  we  shall  have  it  whether  we  will  or  not.  But 
if  we  would  not  have  it  one  of  hereditary  descent, 
or  of  mere  ecclesiastic  or  political  rank,  let  us  see 
to  it  that,  spurning  these  things,  we  do  not  de- 
scend to  that  lowest  deep  and  make  it  merely  one 
of  money.  And  that  we  may  not  do  this,  let  us 
own  and  honor  our  aristoi,  and  give  them  their 

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The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

true  place.  As  between  the  clever  retailer  of  other 
men's  ideas,  and  the  silent,  undemonstrative  origi- 
nator of  his  own,  let  us  make  a  sharp  distinction. 
If  we  will  not  always  be  careful  what  we  buy  in 
the  way  of  literatm-e,  let  us  take  care  what  we 
prize  and  keep.  There  are  voices  that  wait  to 
speak  to  us  nobler  truths  than  yet  the  age  has 
learned ;  but  if  we  would  not  miss  them,  we  must 
make  a  space  and  silence  in  which  they  may  be 
heard,  and  then  we  must  listen  reverently. 

And  this  brings  us  to  that  other  thing  which  we 
may  do  if  the  American  scholar  is  to  take  his  true 
place.  If  the  scholar  is  to  have  his  true  place  in 
our  American  life  he  must  have  his  true  home.  It 
is  too  soon  for  us  to  expect  that  in  a  world  so  new 
as  ours  we  can  have  those  cloistered  nooks  which 
in  other  lands  are  at  once  the  retreat  of  the  stu- 
dent and  his  reward.  But  surely  the  time  has 
come  when  we  may  ask  ourselves  whether  enough 
has  not  been  spent  in  planting  institutions  of 
learning,  and  whether  now  something  may  not 
well  be  devoted  to  enriching  them.  It  is  easy  to 
see  that,  in  a  land  like  ours,  colleges,  both  small 
and  great,  may  have  each  its  place.  But  we  have 
sufficiently  multiplied  the  outlines  of  institutions 
of  learning,  and  may  well  begin  to  think  about  fill- 
ing them  up.  The  want  of  our  American  people 
to-day  in  the  direction  of  a  higher  education  is  not 
new  institutions,  nor  more  buildings,  nor  more 
free  instruction.  Of  all  these  things  experience  is 
every  day  showing  us  there  is  enough  and  more 
than  enough.    But  we  want  place  for  men  who, 

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The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

whether  as  fellows  or  lecturers,  shall,  in  connec- 
tion with  our  universities,  be  free  to  pursue  origi- 
nal investigation  and  to  give  themselves  to  pro- 
found study,  untrammeled  by  the  petty  cares,  the 
irksome  round,  the  small  anxieties,  which  are 
sooner  or  later  the  death  of  aspiration,  and  fatal 
obstacles  to  inspiration.  It  is  with  processes  of 
thought  as  it  is  with  processes  of  nature  —  crys- 
tallization demands  stillness,  equanimity,  repose. 
And  so  the  great  truths  which  are  to  be  the  seed 
of  forces  that  shall  new  create  our  civilization 
must  have  a  chance  first  of  all  to  reveal  them- 
selves. Some  mount  of  vision  there  must  be  for 
the  scholar;  and  those  whose  are  the  material 
treasures  out  of  which  came  those  wonderful  en- 
dowments and  foundations  which  have  lent  to 
England's  universities  some  elements  of  their 
chiefest  glory,  must  see  that  they  have  this  mount 
of  vision. 

And  it  is  at  this  point,  therefore,  that  we  may 
well  invite  the  cooperation  of  those  more  practical 
minds  whose  place  and  work  I  would  by  no  means 
wish  to  disesteem.  Said  one  of  these  not  long 
ago: 

I  want  my  son  to  be  a  classical  scholar,  not  because  I 
can  read  the  classics  or  ever  expect  to,  nor  because  I  an- 
ticipate that  he  will  devote  his  life  to  classical  studies. 
But  I  am  told  by  those  whose  means  of  knowing  are  bet- 
ter than  mine,  that  no  drill  or  disciphne  of  the  mind  can 
be  so  permanently  helpful  as  the  study  of  these  so-called 
dead  languages,  which  furnish  the  sterner  and  therefore 
more  wholesome  discipline  just  because  they  are  dead; 
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The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

and  I  "want  my  son  to  have  a  mental  training  whicli  shall 
most  thoroughly  discipline  the  mind,  and  so  make  him  fit 
for  the  best  and  most  difficult  work. 


There  was  rare  insight  in  such  a  remark  as 
that,  and  it  showed  that  a  so-called  "practical" 
man  could  recognize  the  relation  of  the  best 
intellectual  opportunities  to  the  best  intellectual 
work.  Are  there  not  others  who  will  consent 
to  see  the  necessity  of  giving  to  our  American 
scholar  in  another  way  the  best  opportunities  for 
doing  the  best  work  %  To  create  an  adequate  en- 
dowment or  foundation ;  then  to  place  upon  it  the 
best  man  that  can  be  commanded  in  all  the  land ; 
and  then  —  for  a  time  at  any  rate  —  to  let  him 
alone,  not  to  burden  him  with  conventional  tasks, 
nor  to  exact  from  him  so  much  a  month  or  a  year, 
but  to  leave  him  conscious  that  he  lias  a  noble 
opportunity,  and  that  the  eyes  of  his  brother 
scholars  are  upon  him  to  see  how  he  improves  it — 
this,  I  am  rash  enough  to  believe,  will  open  the  door 
to  imperishable  work  and  to  imperishable  honor. 
There  are  men  among  us  who  have  come  to  be  like 
Fresnel.  Not  indifferent  to  the  approval  of  their 
fellows,  they  are  not  living  for  it,  and  still  less  are 
they  living  for  any  sordid  reward.  To  them  Truth 
is  a  mistress  so  shy  and  coy,  and  yet  so  irresistibly 
attractive,  that  they  would  fain  follow  her  at  all 
hazards.  But  how  can  they  hope  to  do  so,  so  long 
as  they  are  plagued  with  the  anxieties  of  bread- 
winning,  or  tied  to  the  drudgeries  of  what  men 
are  wont  to  call  "profitable  employment"?    And 

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The  Scholar  in  American  Life 

therefore  one  can  imagine  no  nobler  opportunity 
than  comes  to  him  who  has  it  in  his  power  to  go 
to  some  such  seeker  after  truth,  to  take  him  by 
the  hand  and  say :  "  Here  is  leisure ;  here  is  retire- 
ment ;  here  are  books  and  implements.  Be  at  ease 
here  in  this  scholar's  home,  and  wait  for  the  com- 
ing of  the  light.  I  do  not  bid  you  hurry  your 
tasks  or  force  your  powers.  And,  when  at  length 
you  have  a  word  to  speak  to  your  age,  come  forth, 
and  in  the  name  of  God  and  of  his  truth,  do  not  be 
afraid  to  speak  it." 

And  thus  we  see  the  place,  not  only  of  men  of 
thought — of  the  scholar  —  but  of  men  of  action  in 
creating  that  place,  in  such  an  age  as  ours.  The 
wealth  that  turns  with  such  lavish  impulse  toward 
our  institutions  of  learning,  let  it  give  itself,  not  to 
heaping  together  bricks  and  mortar,  but  to  creat- 
ing foundations  or  endowments  which  shall  bear 
witness  to  the  value,  not  of  material  structures, 
but  of  ideas.  It  is  surely  not  without  significance 
that  the  university  which,  youngest  in  years,  is 
already  among  the  foremost  in  American  rank,  is 
that  which  has  been  careless  of  the  grandeur  with 
which  it  builds  its  halls  and  dormitories,  but  has 
chosen  rather  to  make  its  Chairs  so  strong  and  its 
intellectual  furniture  so  noble  that,  already,  it  is 
compelling  to  its  doors  the  best  mind  of  our  best 
youths.  In  such  an  instance  we  have  a  prophecy 
of  the  true  place  and  work  of  the  scholar  in  our 
American  life.  May  the  day  be  not  far  off  when 
all  thoughtful  men,  whether  scholars  or  not,  shall 
recognize  it. 

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ORATION 

Delivered   at  the  Centennial   Celebration   of   Union   College, 
June  27,   1895 


SCHOLARSHIP  AND  SERVICE 


FIFTY  years  ago  an  alumnus  and  professor  of 
Union  College,  speaking  here  in  commemo- 
ration of  its  first  completed  half-century,  uttered 
these  words : 

Standing,  this  morning,  midway  between  the  open- 
ing and  the  close  of  the  fii'st  century  of  om*  collegiate 
history,  we  feel  most  vividly  the  power  we  have  of  trans- 
lating ourselves  into  different  periods  of  time,  of  multi- 
plying, as  it  were,  our  term  of  life.  With  our  venerable 
brother  [the  speaker  was  referring  to  the  Reverend 
Joseph  Sweetman,  the  first,  and  at  that  time  the  oldest 
Hving,  graduate  of  Union  College,  who  had  immediately 
preceded  him  as  one  of  the  orators  of  the  day]  we  have 
gone  back  to  the  feeble  beginnings  of  our  college.  We 
have  trembled  at  the  dangers  and  have  sympathized  with 
the  toils  and  trials  of  those  who,  through  God's  good 
hand,  were  enabled  to  bring  it  into  life.  We  turn  in 
thought  to  the  young  men  who  are  here  to-day,  as  he 
was  here  fifty  years  ago,  undergraduates,  full  of  youth, 
and  health,  and  hope.  We  go  forward  with  them  as  they 
leave  these  halls;  as  they  do  battle  with  the  trials  and 
temptations  of  life;  as  they  fall,  one  after  another,  by 

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the  way ;  till,  a  small  remnant,  weary  and  wayworn,  with 
bended  form  and  silvered  locks,  they  come  up  again,  at 
the  expiration  of  another  fifty  years,  to  the  great  Centen- 
nial Jubilee;  and  we  mingle  with  them  as  they  join  the 
throngs  which  shall  crowd  these  portals  and  pour  along 
these  streets.  Thus  in  the  oldest  and  youngest  of  our 
family  do  we  seem  to  see  one  hundred  years  of  college 
life,  with  all  its  manifold  vicissitudes,  brought  within  the 
compass  of  the  present  hour.  We  seem  to  stand  at  a 
great  cross-road  in  the  journey  of  life,  where  travelers 
come  from  different  and  opposite  quarters;  some  pressing 
forward  to  assume  the  burdens  and  labors  of  the  waj'^, 
others  advancing  with  slow  and  feeble  step  to  lay 
them  down.  Greetings  are  exchanged,  reports  are  made, 
hopes  and  fears  are  uttered,  and  the  crowd  disperses  to 
lose  itself  amid  the  unnumbered  multitudes  that  throng 
life's  ways.  ^ 

The  speaker  who  uttered  these  words,  then  in 
the  prime  of  his  strong  and  stately  manhood,  has 
long  since  fallen  asleep;  and  the  venerable  presi- 
dent and  the  associates  and  contemporaries  who 
then  surrounded  him  have,  with  a  single  excep- 
tion, vanished  one  and  all  from  this  theater  of 
their  common  endeavors.  The  great  Centennial 
Jubilee,  which  he  then  beheld  afar,  has  dawned, 
and  children  and  childi'en's  children  then  unborn 
are  here  to-day  to  keep  it. 

As  they  gather  for  this  greater  festival,  one 
thought  must  first  engross  them.  We  talk  of  the 
mutations  of  time,  and  in  a  country  still  young 

1  "  Semi-Centennial  Discourse  of  the  Eev.  Alonzo  Potter,  D.D,, 
Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  Union  College  and  Bishop-elect 
of  Pennsylvania,"  p.  2. 

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Scholarship  and  Service 

and  but  imperfectly  developed,  like  our  own, 
those  changes  perpetually  challenge  us.  As  in  the 
history  of  civilization  we  have  the  wooden  age, 
the  stone  age,  and  the  iron  age,  so  in  the  history 
of  a  community  or  a  college  fifty  years  may  not 
pass  without  bringing  with  them,  preeminently  in 
a  generation  so  energetic  and  so  creative  as  our 
own,  those  external  transformations,  structural, 
mechanical,  esthetic,  and  artistic,  of  which  the 
last  fifty  years  have  been  so  full.  We  encounter 
them  here  to-day,  as  we  meet  them  all  over  the 
land.  The  Schenectady  of  this  morning,  with  its 
mechanical  industries,  with  its  vast  network  of 
steam  communications,  with  its  altered  modes  of 
living,  is  not  the  slumbrous  Dutch  survival  which 
some  of  us  remember  so  vividly  fifty  years  ago. 
But  when  we  ascend  to  yonder  hill,  and,  passing 
the  portals  of  the  historic  "  blue  gate,"  advance  to 
the  college  campus,  no  change  in  the  group  of 
buildings  that  we  discover  can  alter  the  identity 
of  that  wider  outlook,  so  rare  and  beautiful  in  the 
charm  of  its  expanse,  and  in  the  picturesqueness 
and  variety  of  its  lovely  landscape,  which  then 
salutes  us.  Nature,  in  its  steadfast  and  immutable 
characteristics,  still  remains:  the  silver  thread  of 
the  winding  Mohawk;  the  break  in  the  distant 
hills  where,  long  ago,  the  sun  sank  to  rest,  just 
as  it  sets  to-day;  the  corn  standing  so  thick  in 
the  valley  that,  in  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  it 
seems  to  "laugh  and  sing" — all  these  are  there; 
and  as  the  thick-thronging  memaries  that  they 
awaken  come  crowding  back  on  us,  once  more 

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Scholarship  and  Service 

we  are  young  and  blithe  again,  and  the  future  lies 
at  our  feet. 

I  am  not  sure  if  it  would  be  well  for  us  if  it  did ; 
nor  that,  if  one  who  has  come  here  to-day  with  his 
half-century  of  memories  could  by  some  magic 
make  himself  young  again  and  take  his  place  with 
those  who  will  this  morning  go  forth  from  their 
Alma  Mater  to  face  the  conflicts  of  the  world,  he 
would  find  himself  equal  to  his  tasks  or  happy  in 
his  surroundings.  For  no  sooner  are  we  sensible 
here  or  elsewhere  of  the  permanence  of  nature, 
than  we  are  constrained  to  remember  the  inevit- 
able and  tremendous  transformations  of  circum- 
stance. This  is  a  centennial  anniversary,  and  our 
retrospect  this  morning  carries  us  back,  not  fifty 
merely,  but  one  hundred  years.  A  century  ago! 
Do  we  realize  what  was  the  Eepublic  of  1795, 
and  how  vastly  it  differed  from  the  Republic  of 
1895  ?  Little  more  than  a  decade,  then,  had  passed 
since  our  country  had  achieved  its  independence. 
Less  than  twenty  years  had  then  elapsed  since 
these  American  seaboard  States  —  there  were  then 
none  others  —  were  colonies  of  G-reat  Britain.  A 
sparsely  settled  country;  a  people  of  narrow  means 
and  meager  resources  of  every  kind;  a  life  that 
forbade  leisure  and  equally  forbade  luxury;  a  long, 
hard  struggle,  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances, 
just  to  survive  the  hardships  and  privations  of  a 
new  country;  communities  almost  wholly  without 
roads,  or  cities,  or  libraries,  or  arts,  or  manufac- 
tures, or  commerce;  social  and  domestic  condi- 
tions often  so  primitive  and  elementary  that,  if 

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"we  were  to  reproduce  them  to-day,  they  would 
seem  all  but  unendurable  to  the  softer  manners  of 
our  more  luxurious  age — these  were  the  condi- 
tions from  amid  which  the  youth  of  1795  turned 
their  faces  toward  this  home  of  learning,  and 
sought  for  the  equipment  which  it  offered  them. 

And  just  because  it  was  so,  it  would  not  have 
been  strange  if  the  culture  which  was  offered  to 
them  had  taken  on  the  characteristics  which  those 
more  primitive  times  seemed  so  imperatively  to 
demand.  If,  instead  of  the  ordinary  curriculum  of 
a  college  as  we  are  wont  to  think  of  it  —  its  classi- 
cal and  Hterary  as  well  as  its  mathematical  and 
scientific  training, —  the  Union  College  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  had  set  to  work  to  teach  its  undergi-adu- 
ates  how  to  plow  and  sow  and  reap ;  how  to  build 
fences  and  bridges  and  roads ;  how  to  make  tools 
and  use  them;  how  to  rear  mills  and  run  them; 
how  to  create  trafific  and  promote  it  —  how  clever 
such  a  method  would  have  seemed  to  the  men  of 
this  day,  however  it  might  have  appeared  to  its 
contemporaries !  It  is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  glory 
of  your  Alma  Mater,  sons  of  Union  College,  that 
it  did  not.  I  do  not  know  how  it  may  appear  to 
others,  but  there  must  surely  be,  to  one  who  looks 
at  it  in  its  wider  significance,  something  singularly 
noble  in  the  spectacle  of  those  few  men  who  or- 
ganized this  college,  and,  in  the  midst  of  condi- 
tions as  hard  and  incongruous  as  those  which  I 
have  described,  set  it  to  teaching  that  "polite 
learning,"  as  it  was  then  called,  which  so  wisely 
included  not  alone  the  mechanic  arts,  the  physical 

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sciences,  and  those  other  branches  of  learning 
which  are  directly  connected  with  the  material 
conditions  under  which  men  earn  their  bread,  but 
always,  along  with  these,  those  higher  branches 
of  learning  which  unsealed  the  realm  of  letters 
which  bridged  the  intervening  centuries  between 
the  Republic  of  America  and  the  Republic  of 
Grreece,  and  which  gave  to  human  life  the  charm 
and  beauty  of  art  and  poetry  and  literature.  They 
saw, —  those  men  of  elder  times, —  with  a  fine  and 
unerring  perception,  that  life  is  always  tending, 
just  because  of  the  inexorable  and  ever-recurring 
wants  of  the  body,  to  become  sordid  and  unaspir- 
ing and  material;  and  therefore,  over  against  the 
pressure  of  its  lower  needs,  they  would  fain  set  the 
temple  of  a  loftier  ideal,  and  fill  it  with  the  images 
of  the  great  and  good  of  every  age.  It  may  never 
have  occurred  to  you  to  consider  the  fact,  but  cer- 
tainly it  has  in  it  a  profound  significance,  that, 
in  an  age  when,  far  more  than  in  our  own,  with 
its  ampler  resources  and  its  larger  leisure,  other 
knowledge  than  the  knowledge  how  to  get  bread 
out  of  the  ground,  or  ore  out  of  a  mine,  was  not 
the  primary  want,  such  knowledge  did  not  seem  to 
the  founders  of  this  college  a  stupid  impertinence. 
A  friend  sent  me  the  other  day  a  copy  of  the  ora- 
tion delivered  by  the  valedictorian  of  his  class  on 
the  first  Commencement  Day  of  this  college,  just 
ninety-nine  years  ago.  I  wish  the  limits  of  this 
occasion  permitted  me  to  quote  from  its  lofty  and 
eloquent  periods.  From  exordium  to  peroration 
they  were  distinguished  by  a  felicity  of  phrase  and 

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an  aptness  of  classical  allusion  that  showed  a 
study  of  great  models  and  a  style  instinct  with 
the  best  learning.  And  yet  the  men  who  were 
graduated  then,  oftener  than  otherwise,  took  away 
such  fine  cultui*e  as  they  acquired  here  to  scenes 
and  tasks  which  were  most  unfriendly  to  it.  Un- 
less they  could  prize  it  for  its  own  sake,  even  as 
for  its  own  sake  they  had  fii-st  of  all  come  to 
seek  it,  it  brought  them  no  reward. 

The  contrast  which  salutes  us  to-day  is  at  once 
curious  and  paradoxical.  The  century  that  has 
passed  since  this  college  was  founded  has  produced 
undreamed-of  changes  in  our  whole  social  situa- 
tion. A  single  illustration  of  this,  which  touches 
directly  the  conditions  of  college  life,  will  answer 
as  well  as  a  hundred.  A  century  ago,  the  average 
annual  expenditure  of  an  undergraduate  in  college 
was,  I  apprehend,  rather  under  than  over  two 
hundi'ed  and  fifty  dollars.  To-day — at  any  rate 
in  the  greater  colleges  —  it  is,  I  apprehend,  much 
nearer  one  thousand  dollars;  and  there  are  large 
numbers  of  undergraduates  whose  annual  expendi- 
ture is  more  than  twice  as  much  as  this.  Now, 
when  we  have  made  all  possible  allowance  for  the 
difference  between  then  and  now  in  the  purchas- 
ing-power of  money,  the  fact  still  remains  that 
such  an  increase  must  represent  a  vast  increase  in 
the  wealth  of  the  constituencies  which  are  repre- 
sented in  our ,  colleges.  As  to  this,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  and  it  would  seem  as 
if  such  a  change  ought  to  have  brought  with  it  a 
wider  and  more  general  esteem  for  those  depart- 

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ments  of  learning  which  are  the  especial  distinc- 
tion of  nations  in  a  high  state  of  civilization  and 
prosperity,  with  vast  resources  and  a  constantly 
increasing  cultivated  class.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  present  tendency  in  colleges  seems  to  be 
in  quite  an  opposite  direction.  More  and  more  is 
it  coming  to  be  accepted  as  an  academic  tradition, 
so  to  speak,  that  a  man  may  take  a  degree  as 
Bachelor  of  Arts  without  having  acquired  even  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  the  two  gi'eat  languages 
which,  more  than  any  others,  contain  the  choicest 
literary  treasures  in  the  world;  and  this  change 
has  come  to  pass,  more  largely  than  for  any  other 
reason,  because  such  knowledge  is  claimed  to  be  of 
very  secondary  value,  if  of  any,  in  the  practical 
business  of  our  modern  world. 

I  may  not  argue  that  question  here,  open  though 
it  most  surely  is  to  argument ;  but  it  suggests  an- 
other with  which  such  an  anniversary  as  this  is 
preeminently  concerned.  We  have  come  to-day  to 
a  point  in  the  history  of  this  college  when  we  may 
wisely  pause  and  "  look  before  and  after."  A  hun- 
dred years  of  collegiate  life  —  to  what  are  they  the 
witnesses — of  what  are  they  the  prophecy?  There 
is  a  conception  of  such  an  institution  as  this  which 
is  at  once  prevalent  and  popular,  but  which,  as  I 
conceive,  falls  far  below  its  highest  use  and  pur- 
pose. A  college,  we  are  told,  is  a  place  where  men 
acquire  certain  branches  of  higher  learning,  and 
store  their  minds  with  certain  phrases  and  for- 
mulae, which  will  be  of  use  to  them  in  the  various 
businesses  of  life.     Just  as  in  a  school  of  phar- 

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macy  the  pupil  learns  of  certain  substances,  their 
properties,  proportions,  and  relations  in  combina- 
tion with  each  other,  out  of  which  come  certain 
remedial  agencies  used  in  the  science  of  thera- 
peutics, so  in  a  college  words,  signs,  facts  are  to 
be  stored  away  in  the  mind,  and  taken  down  from 
time  to  time  from  their  shelves,  as  the  occasion 
may  require,  for  practical  service.  That  this  de- 
scription of  a  widely  prevalent  conception  of  the 
office  of  a  college  is  not  a  purely  imaginary  one  is 
strikingly  confirmed  by  a  passage  in  Schopen- 
hauer's essay  "  On  Men  of  Learning,"  which  some 
of  you  will  doubtless  recognize. 

When  [he  says]  one  sees  the  number  and  variety  of  in- 
stitutions which  exist  for  the  purposes  of  education,  and 
the  vast  throng  of  scholars  and  masters,  one  might  fancy 
the  human  race  to  be  very  much  concerned  about  truth 
and  wisdom.  But  here,  too,  appearances  are  deceptive. 
Students  and  learned  persons  of  all  sorts  aim,  as  a  rule, 
at  acquiring  information  rather  than  insight.  They  pique 
themselves  about  knowing  about  everything  —  stones, 
plants,  battles,  experiments,  and  all  the  books  in  exist- 
ence. It  never  occurs  to  them  that  information  is  only 
a  means  of  insight,  and  in  itself  of  httle  or  no  value ; 
that  it  is  his  way  of  thinking  that  makes  a  man  a  phi- 
losopher. When  I  hear  of  these  portents  of  learning, 
and  their  imposing  erudition,  I  say  to  myself,  "Ah,  how 
httle  they  must  have  had  to  think  about,  to  be  able  to 
read  so  much !  "  And  when  I  actually  find  that  it  is  re- 
ported of  the  elder  Pliny  that  he  was  continually  reading 
or  being  read  to,  at  table,  on  a  journey,  or  in  his  bath, 
the  question  forces  itself  upon  my  mind  whether  the  man 
was  so  very  lacking  in  thought  that  he  had  to  have 

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others'  thought  incessantly  instilled  into  him,  as  though 
he  were  a  consumptive  patient  taking  jellies  to  keep  him- 
self alive?  And  neither  his  undiscerning  creduhty  nor 
his  inexpressibly  repulsive  style,  which  seems  like  that  of 
a  man  taking  notes  and  very  economical  of  his  paper, 
is  of  a  kind  to  give  me  a  high  estimate  of  his  power  of 
independent  thought.^ 


There  may  be  two  opinions  about  Schopen- 
hauer's judgment  concerning  the  style  and  sub- 
stance of  Pliny ;  but  there  can  be  only  one  as  to 
the  eternal  distinction  between  the  two  types  of 
students  and  scholars  of  which  Pliny  was  plainly 
one.  That  distinction  which  Frederick  Maurice 
somewhere  makes  between  acquisition  and  illumi- 
nation lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  learning,  and 
inevitably  determines  its  character.  There  is  a 
learning  which  is  simply  an  accumulation  of  vari- 
ous and,  it  may  easily  be,  curious  and  recondite 
information.  It  is  of  such,  learning  that  Schopen- 
hauer elsewhere  says,  "The  wig  [the  full-bottomed, 
curled,  and  beribboned  wdg,  he  means,  such  as 
judges  and  bishops  wore  a  century  ago]  is  the 
appropriate  symbol  of  the  man  of  learning  pure 
and  simple.  It  adorns  the  head  with  a  copious 
quantity  of  false  hair  in  lack  of  one's  own,  just 
as  erudition  means  endowing  it  with  a  great  mass 
of  alien  thought."-  The  figure  is  grotesque,  per- 
haps ;  but  the  idea  behind  it  is  indisputably  true. 
The  scholar,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term,  is 
one  to  whom  an  accumulation  of  learning  is  sim- 

1 "  The  Art  of  Literature,"  pp.  49,  50.  2  lUd,  p.  51. 

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ply  the  storing  of  his  reservoirs  for  the  large 
and  benevolent  activities  of  daily  thought  and 
service.  And  the  nature  of  that  service  and  the 
character  of  its  influence  will  be  largely  deter- 
mined by  the  spirit  in  which  the  student  acquu-es 
his  learning,  and  the  uses  which  he  aims  to 
make  of  it. 

Let  us  try  and  understand  ourselves  here ;  and 
that  we  may  do  so,  let  me  try  and  state  the  situa- 
tion as  it  confronts  us  as  clearly  as  I  may.  There 
are  between  sixty  and  seventy  millions  of  people 
In  this  land  to-day,  and  of  these  I  presume  it 
would  be  quite  safe  to  say  that  not  five  in  five 
hundred  are,  or  ever  will  be,  college  graduates.  A 
much  larger  proportion  of  them  will  undoubtedly 
have  had  the  rudiments  of  a  common-school  edu- 
cation, and  a  very  moderate  proportion  of  these, 
owing  to  the  pressure  of  daily  events,  the  dis- 
abling conditions  of  their  surroundings,  and  other 
kindred  circumstances,  will  early  have  fallen  out 
of  the  habit  of  reading  any  other  than  the  most 
ephemeral  and  often  mentally  debilitating  litera- 
ture, and  equally  out  of  the  power  of  thinking 
into  and  through  the  grave  social,  political,  and  per- 
sonal questions  which  challenge  one  almost  daily. 
I  know  that  I  am  saying  something  here  which 
will  be  distasteful  to  many,  and  which  from 
others  will  provoke  impatient  and  contemptuous 
denial.  It  will  be  said,  for  instance,  that  the  aver- 
age of  intelligence  among  the  American  people  is 
higher  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world;  that  the 
clear  vision  of  the  less  highly  educated  classes  is 


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continually  demonstrating  itself  in  its  singularly 
unerring  instinct  for  the  right  in  great  moral  and 
political  crises ;  and  that  to  think  or  speak  of  the 
large  and  less  cultivated  majority  as  at  all  repre- 
senting an  ignorant  European  peasantry  is  at  once 
a  slander  and  a  stupidity.  I  gladly  believe  it ;  but 
I  believe,  no  less,  that  the  influence  of  educated 
men  upon  men  who  are  but  partially  educated  has 
never  been  greater  than  to-day,  and  is  destined  to 
be  greater  still.  And  this  is  the  case,  let  me  add, 
just  because  our  average  American  citizen  who  is 
not  a  college  gi'aduate,  while  often  unequal  to  pro- 
found or  acute  original  thinking,  is  nevertheless 
becoming  more  and  more  trained  to  recognize  the 
characteristics  and  often  the  force  of  the  processes 
of  such  reasoning,  and  to  be  increasingly  influ- 
enced by  them.  Max  Nordau  says  in  his  striking 
work  on  "  Degeneration "  that  to-day  every  Ger- 
man peasant  who  buys  a  penny  paper  puts  himself 
thereby  in  touch  with  the  interests  and  sufferings 
and  fears  and  aspii'ations,  through  its  telegraphic 
columns,  of  the  whole  civilized  world.  Yes;  but 
who  is  to  guide  him  so  to  interpret  the  larger  sig- 
nificance of  what  he  reads  as  to  make  him  a  better 
citizen  and  a  better  man?  It  is  here,  as  I  con- 
ceive, that  the  office  of  the  true  scholar  appears. 
You  may  exclaim  against  social  and  personal  in- 
equalities as  you  please.  The  time  will  never 
come  when  a  man  who  has  not  merely  learned  cer- 
tain chemical  combinations  so  that  he  can  manu- 
facture a  fertilizer,  or  certain  mathematical  com- 
binations so  that  he  can  build  a  railroad,  but  has 

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also  learned  what  made  a  little  peninsula  in  the 
Adriatic  the  mistress  of  the  world,  or  how  Eoman 
law  became  the  basis  of  the  jurisprudence  of 
Christendom,  or  how  the  fall  of  empires  was  fore- 
shadowed in  the  "  Republic  "  of  Plato,  or  how  the 
growth  of  a  corrupt  and  privileged  ecclesiasticism 
brought  about  the  transformation  of  modern  Eu- 
rope—  the  time  will  never  come,  I  say,  when  the 
man  who  has  learned  these  things  —  not  a  parrot- 
like learning,  but  in  the  length  and  breadth  of 
their  vast  and  enduring  significance  —  will  not  be, 
in  every  highest  sense,  the  master  of  him  who  has 
not.  He  may  not  be  as  rich,  as  adroit,  as  aggres- 
sive, or  apparently  as  successful.  He  may  be 
overlooked  and  forgotten  in  the  mad  scramble  for 
place  or  power,  or  in  the  vulgar  contentions  of  po- 
Htical  conventions.  But  sooner  or  later  will  come 
the  moment  when  inferior  men,  helpless  and  grop- 
ing in  their  ignorance,  will  be  compelled  to  listen 
to  him,  just  as  men  of  meaner  mold  were  com- 
pelled to  listen  to  Lincoln,  graduate  of  no  univer- 
sity, it  is  true,  but  from  the  hour  when,  a  long,  un- 
gainly lad,  he  lay  before  the  fire  in  his  father's 
cabin,  reading  by  the  light  of  a  pine-knot,  all  the 
way  on,  a  devourer  of  books,  an  insatiate  learner 
and  student,  reader  and  thinker  and  seer  as  well ! 
And  thus,  I  conceive,  we  are  prepared  to  see  the 
place  which  the  college  ought  to  fill  in  our  social 
economy  to-day,  and  the  influence  which  those 
who  are  bred  in  it  should  exercise.  It  should  be 
the  training-school  not  merely  of  learners,  but  of 
thinkers;  and  the  men  whom  it  graduates  should 

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be  the  leaders  not  merely  in  successful  enterprise 
and  in  purely  technical  ability,  but  in  those 
sounder  ideas  of  civic  and  social  and  moral  order 
of  which  the  greatest  nations  have  yet  so  much  to 
learn.  I  do  not  forget  the  fine  disdain  which  exists 
among  us  in  certain  quarters  toward  the  "  scholar 
in  politics  "  (of  which  disdain,  unless  I  am  mistaken, 
you  have  here  had  quite  unstinted  expression  on 
occasions  similar  to  this)  nor  the  impatience  of 
its  criticisms.  But  the  scholar,  happily  for  the 
betterment  of  the  state,  however  little  the  ring- 
masters and  office-holders  happen  to  like  it,  per- 
sists in  obtruding  himself  into  politics,  as  into  all 
other  burning  questions,  and  turning  the  eye  of  his 
pitiless  lantern  of  truth  upon  partizan  leaders  and 
placemen  with  equal  and  searching  impartiality. 
Have  you  ever  thought  what  would  become  of  us 
if  he  did  not  ?  Have  you  ever  dared  to  sit  down 
and  imagine  what  ignorance  and  cupidity  mated 
to  an  unscrupulous  lust  of  power  would  do  with 
the  Republic  if  it  were  not  for  some  clear  voice 
of  warning  which  from  time  to  time  lifts  its  pene- 
trating note,  names  the  insolent  defier  of  the  eter- 
nal equities,  paints  the  infamy  of  his  conduct,  and 
pursues  him  with  relentless  denunciation?  We 
have  had  om'  modern  Elijah  lately,  in  the  gi-eat 
metropolis  yonder,  facing  the  modern  Ahab  of 
Tammany  Hall  as  he  sneered,  "Art  thou  he  that 
troubleth  Israel?"  and  answering  as  of  old,  "I 
have  not  troubled  Israel;  but  thou,  and  thy  father's 
house."  And  we  sleep  easier  in  New  York  be- 
cause of  his  brave  and  splendid  crusade.     Does 

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anybody  think  that  that  crusade  was  a  less  effec- 
tive one  because  Dr.  Parkhurst  was  a  college 
gi'aduate?  Nay,  does  not  every  intelligent  man 
know  that  that  clear  and  vigorous  and  acute  mind, 
yet  to  light,  I  hope,  the  "back  fii-es"  that  will 
burn  up  all  the  rubbish  of  "bossism"  through- 
out the  commonwealth  —  does  not  every  one  know 
that  this  fearless  leader  was  just  so  much  better 
equipped  for  his  great  task  because  of  his  wider 
reading  of  history,  and  the  finer  training  of  all 
his  mental  powers  ? 

Never,  indeed,  was  there  an  age  when  the  state 
demanded  of  its  sons,  in  whatever  relation  they  are 
to  serve  it,  a  larger  learning  and  a  riper  culture. 
The  dangers  that  assail  us  to-day  are,  after  all,  as 
a  very  limited  reading  will  demonstrate,  but  the 
reappearance  of  old  foes  in  a  new  guise.  There 
is  not  a  political  or  social  or  economic  heresy  of 
which  you  may  not  find  the  prototype  in  the  pages 
of  a  nearer  or  remoter  past.  We  break  the  molds 
in  which  society  organizes  itself ;  we  dethrone  the 
monarch  and  fling  away  his  scepter :  but  the  peril 
of  officialism  forever  remains,  and  the  insolent 
pride  of  office  needs  forever  to  be  taught,  sharply 
and  humblingly  if  need  be,  all  the  way  from  Chief 
Magistrate  to  policeman,  that  our  rulers  are  the 
servants  of  the  people.  And  the  men  who  are  to 
lead  in  these  reforms,  the  men  whose  right  it  is  to 
lead,  as  dealing  with  a  situation  which  has  in  it  no 
novelty,  are  the  men  who  are  ordained  to  be  "men 
of  leading  "  because  they  are  also  "  men  of  light." 

And  this  not  only  in  the  realm  of  civic  and 
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political  problems,  but  also  in  that  wider  realm 
which  includes  our  whole  social  order,  and  touches 
all  the  complex  relations  that  bind  together  a  civil- 
ized society.  Here  again,  as  before,  we  find  that 
a  reconstruction  of  the  form  under  which  such  a 
society  exists  does  not  free  it  from  the  perils  which 
have  threatened  other  and  older  nations  and  com- 
munities. We  have  no  landed  aristocracy,  for 
instance,  in  America;  but  we  have  forms  of  as- 
sociated wealth  which  have  seemed  to  many  people 
who  are  not  at  all  alarmists  quite  as  formidable 
and  dangerous.  How  to  harmonize  these,  and 
how,  above  all,  to  disseminate  a  sound  social  and 
political  economy  among  people  who  are  easily 
misled  by  a  doctrine  of  socialism  which,  in  correct- 
ing one  set  of  evils,  threatens  to  create  others  even 
more  dangerous  and  destructive  in  thek  tenden- 
cies —  this,  surely,  must  be  the  office  of  men  who 
have  read  history  widely  and  deeply,  who  have  in- 
formed themselves  as  to  the  origin  and  begin- 
nings of  socialistic  movements  all  the  way  from 
Athenian  communism  down  through  the  story  of 
the  Hebrew  theocracy, — the  societies,  as  we  should 
call  them,  of  the  Essenes  and  Therapeutae, — on 
through  all  the  monastic  life  of  the  middle  ages, 
until  in  the  sixteenth  century  Sir  Thomas  More 
published  his  "Utopia,"  and  in  our  own  cen- 
tury Robert  Owen  and  Saint-Simon  and  Lamen- 
nais  gave  to  the  world  their  more  or  less  crude 
conceptions  of  an  ideal  state.  To  be  ignorant  of 
these  things,  of  all  that  they  stand  for,  and  of  the 
truths   and   fallacies,   so    curiously   intermingled, 

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which  they  severally  illustrate,  is  to  be  largely 
disqualified  even  for  intelligently  discussing,  much 
more  effectually  attempting  to  solve,  the  problems 
which  to-day  increasingly  challenge  us.  Here  is 
the  scholar's  true  place,  and  here,  brethren  and  fa- 
thers of  Union  College,  will  be  some  of  the  no- 
blest opportunities  of  the  men  who  go  forth  from 
yonder  halls. 

And  this,  most  of  all,  because  this  college  has 
always  stood,  and  I  pray  God  may  ever  continue 
to  stand,  as  the  nm'sery  not  alone  of  a  sound 
learning,  but  also  as  the  home  of  a  truly  philo- 
sophic and  reflective  temper — a  temper  touched 
and  ennobled  by  the  highest  of  all  sanctions,  the 
person  and  the  message  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
spirit  of  the  greatest  Teacher  whom  the  world  has 
ever  known,  a  Teacher  both  human  and  divine,  was 
early  invoked  here,  and  has  been  the  dominant 
spell  in  the  noblest  minds  and  lives  that  the  his- 
tory of  this  college  has  known.  It  was  called 
Union  College,  unless  I  have  been  misinformed, 
because  in  a  generation  conspicuous  for  marked 
denominational  differences  it  was  meant  to  stand 
for  a  larger  and  more  comprehensive  spirit.  The 
leading  institutions  of  learning  in  this  land  a  cen- 
tury ago  stood  mainly  for  various  partial  aspects 
of  Christian  truth  or  ecclesiastical  order  which  it 
is  no  disrespect  to  them  to  describe  as  exclusive 
rather  than  inclusive.  The  men  who  were  reared 
in  them  were  mainly  the  sons  of  those  who,  from 
strong  conviction  or  inherited  belief,  held  some- 
what stiffly  not  merely  to  a  particular  faith,  but  to 

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a  distinctive  order.  It  was  the  especial  distinction 
of  Union  College  that  it  allied  itself  to  no  single 
fellowship  in  these  particulars,  but  had  an  equal 
welcome  for  pupils  of  whatever  tradition.  As 
little  did  it  disparage  strenuous  convictions  in 
these  directions,  or  discourage  their  expression. 
What  has  lately  and  slowly  come  to  be  the  preva- 
lent usage  of  other  institutions  in  this  regard  was, 
unless  I  am  mistaken,  the  rule  of  this  college  since 
the  beginning.  Each  youth  was  taught  to  respect 
the  convictions  in  which  he  had  been  reared,  and 
left  free  to  believe  and  to  worship  in  accordance 
with  them.  But  as  recognizing  that  greater  is 
the  spirit  than  the  form  or  symbol  through  which 
it  finds  expression,  there  presided  from  the  be- 
ginning here  a  wide-minded  and  reverent  faith, 
profoundly  concerned  rather  for  the  fundamental 
virtues,  and  constantly  illustrating  theii*  transform- 
ing power. 

Such  words,  you  will  say,  perhaps,  are  mere 
generalities,  and  it  is  easy  to  indulge  in  gene- 
ralities. Bear  with  me,  then,  for  a  few  moments 
longer,  if  I  attempt  at  once  to  interpret  and  justify 
them  by  some  illustrative  personal  reminiscences. 
I  am  not,  with  a  single  exception,  familiar  enough 
with  the  earlier  history  of  Union  College  to  recall 
the  men  who  were  first  conspicuous  in  determin- 
ing its  character  and  creating  its  just  renown,  nor 
may  I  venture  to  deal  with  its  later  annals  in  any 
purely  judicial  spirit.  But  taking  these  hundred 
years  as  a  whole,  there  are,  I  venture  to  think, 
four  names  which,  if  not  preeminent  among  those 


Scbolarship  and  Service 

who  have  influenced  the  gi'owth  and  determined 
what  is  most  characteristic  in  the  history  and  de- 
velopment of  this  college,  are  those  of  men  who 
have  largely  affected  both,  and  who  may  at  any 
rate  be  accepted  as  typical  of  what,  for  want  of  a 
better  word,  I  may  call  the  genius  of  the  college  — 
I  mean  Eliphalet  Nott,  Alonzo  Potter,  Isaac  W. 
Jackson,  and  Tayler  Lewis.  I  am  embarrassed,  as 
you  readily  anticipate,  by  personal  ties  connecting 
me  with  two  of  these  names;  but  not  thereby,  I 
hope,  wholly  disqualified  from  estimating  them 
with  at  least  a  moderate  impartiality.  Concerning 
the  other  two,  I  am  happily  free  to  speak  without 
restraint  or  reserve. 

One  of  them  carries  me  back  to  childish  days, — 
for,  alas!  I  was  never  myself  his  pupil, — and  has  to 
do  with  impressions  which  are  among  the  earliest 
which  the  mind  can  receive.  There  is  no  lad 
within  the  sound  of  my  voice,  there  is  no  man 
who  is  not  so  unfortunate  as  wholly  to  have  for- 
gotten the  impressions  of  childhood,  who  will  not 
tell  you  that  they  concerned  first  of  all  those  things 
that  strike  the  eye  and  the  ear,  and  that  awaken 
on  the  one  hand  or  the  other  fear  or  affection. 
And  so  I  apprehend  that  no  youth  who  can  re- 
member him  at  all  will  ever  be  able  to  disassociate 
Professor  Jackson  from  that  impression  of  sol- 
dierly precision,  and  that  aspect  and  manner  of 
almost  military  brevity  and  abruptness,  which 
were  the  first  characteristics  in  him  that  revealed 
themselves.  They  created  at  once  their  own  at- 
mosphere, and  built  up  inevitably  a  fixed  tradi- 

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tion  whicli  no  less  inevitably  found  familiar  ex- 
pression in  a  titular  designation  which  will  live  in 
the  memory  of  the  men  who  were  so  fortunate  as 
to  be  his  pupils  as  long  as  they  remember  any- 
thing. But  no  less  vivid  in  the  memory  of  these 
pupils,  I  am  persuaded,  as  in  the  memory  of  all 
who  genuinely  knew  him,  will  be  the  recollection 
of  those  other  quahties  in  him,  so  marked  and 
so  engaging,  which  preeminently  determined  his 
character.  I  remember  to  have  heard  it  said  once, 
in  connection  with  Professor  Jackson's  devotion  to 
all  that  was  beautiful  in  trees,  shrubs,  plants,  and 
flowers,  that  it  seemed  to  be  a  very  odd  thing  that 
a  professor  of  mathematics  should  find  his  chief 
delight  in  the  creation  of  a  beautiful  garden ;  but 
in  fact  it  was  this  harmony  of  opposite  tastes  and 
characteristics  which  made  him  always  so  delight- 
ful a  companion  and  so  interesting  a  personality. 
But  not  this  alone.  His  fine  taste,  his  scientific 
knowledge,  his  rare  energy,  were  all  dominated  by 
a  singular  elevation  and  nobility  of  temper,  which 
assm'ed  all  men  of  his  incorruptible  integrity,  and 
which  made  him  a  power  for  all  that  was  best. 
Like  the  science  he  loved  so  well  and  taught  so  ably, 
he  was  an  exact  man;  and  rectitude,  a  life  ordered 
upon  a  right  line,  distinguished  all  that  he  was  and 
did.  In  a  thousand  unconscious  ways  his  pupils 
felt  and  recognized  this ;  and  so  he  stood  here,  dur- 
ing all  his  long  and  distinguished  service  as  a  pro- 
fessor in  this  college,  for  that  which  must  forever 
be  a  part  of  the  structural  foundations  of  character 
— the  right,  and  the  eternal  righteousness. 

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Another  there  was,  cast  in  a  different  mold,  and 
exercising,  by  his  pen  as  well  as  by  his  voice  and 
presence,  an  influence  felt  far  beyond  these  imme- 
diate limits,  and  felt  increasingly  to  the  end.  In 
Professor  Tayler  Lewis  were  united  in  a  rare  de- 
gree the  gifts  of  the  thinker  and  the  seer.  His 
clear  and  luminous  mind  penetrated  always  to  the 
heart  of  things,  and  a  rare  felicity  of  statement 
made  him  a  teacher  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word. 
All  over  this  land  to-day  there  are  men  who  can 
look  back  and  remember  how,  in  more  than  one 
direction,  his  acute  and  vigorous  intellect  gave  to 
then*  best  powers  their  earliest  and  most  distinc- 
tive impulse,  and  how  the  charm  of  his  pictur- 
esque presence,  and  the  beautiful  transparency  of 
his  most  engaging  and  lovable  personality,  made 
them  in  love  with  beauty  and  goodness  and  truth, 
wherever  it  might  reveal  itself. 

Still  another  there  was  of  whom  I  may  scarcely 
venture  to  speak  at  all,  and  yet  concerning  whom 
you  will  as  little  expect  me  to  keep  silent.  When, 
in  the  year  1814,  a  Quaker  lad,  no  older  than  the 
centmy,  entered  Union  College,  he  Httle  dreamed 
with  how  large  a  part  of  his  life  it  was  to  be  bound 
up,  nor  how  large  a  debt  he  was  to  owe  it.  Later 
generations  will  declare  whether  he  at  all  dis- 
charged that  debt ;  but  none  of  his  contemporaries 
will  be  reluctant,  I  imagine,  to  own  that,  what- 
ever the  obligations  of  Alonzo  Potter  to  Union 
College,  he  gave  to  it  in  return  some  of  the  best 
years  and  most  helpful  services  of  a  rare  and 
noble  life.    Gifted  above  most  men  of  his  day  and 

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calling,  with  a  singularly  wide  range  of  vision  and 
a  very  high  and  sacred  sense  of  the  teacher's  call- 
ing, he  touched  few  lives  without  lifting  them  to  a 
loftier  conception  at  once  of  the  privileges  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  educated  men.  A  great  teacher 
himself,  he  was  a  greater  disciple  of  the  truth, 
however  revealed.  Wherever  it  led,  he  was  ready 
to  follow,  and  with  sympathies  as  large  and  gen- 
erous as  were  his  intellectual  endowments.  The 
motto  of  Terence — '"''Homo  sum:  humani  nihil  a  me 
alienwm''''  —  was  as  true  of  all  that  he  was  and 
did  as  if  it  had  been  his  own.  He  loved  this  col- 
lege with  a  tender  and  inextinguishable  love,  and 
much  of  its  most  enduring  fame  will  be  bound  up 
with  his  name  and  services. 

And  he  whose  son,  if  not  in  the  flesh  yet  most 
truly  in  the  spirit,  he  was — the  man  to  whom, 
more  than  any  other  in  all  its  history,  this  college 
is  preeminently  indebted — do  I  need  even  to  name 
him?  There  was  a  time  when  "Union  College" 
and  "Eliphalet  Nott"  were  convertible  terms. 
There  will  never  come  a  time  when  all  that  is  best 
and  gi'eatest  in  its  achievements  will  not  be  indis- 
solubly  bound  up  with  his  work.  He  could  say  of 
the  college,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  words,  what 
a  Roman  emperor  could  say  of  his  capital  —  that 
he  "came  and  found  it  of  wood,  and  left  it  of 
marble."  Step  by  step,  nulla  vestigia  retrorsum,  he 
lifted  it  out  of  its  provincial  obscm'ity,  and  gave 
to  it  a  name  and  a  fame  throughout  the  land.  A 
young  man  and  an  old  man  eloquent,  he  was  with- 
out the  rashness  of  the  one  or  the  acerbity  of  the 

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other.  Of  singular  wisdom  and  penetration,  lie  was 
adorned  by  a  no  less  singular  patience  and  gentle- 
ness. Of  a  humor  so  delightful  and  so  unique  that 
the  traditions  of  it  are  as  fresh  to-day  as  they  were 
half  a  century  ago,  he  was  as  incapable  of  a  word 
that  could  wound  or  malign,  as  he  was  of  a  thought 
that  was  base  or  mean.  A  teacher  of  almost  un- 
equaled  charm  in  the  class-room,  he  was  a  coun- 
selor of  matchless  and  unerring  wisdom  for  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men  outside  it.  The 
helper  and  defender  of  the  friendless,  the  pioneer 
in  every  good  and  noble  cause,  however  despised 
or  forlorn,  his  heart  was  as  young  at  fourscore  as 
when  he  was  himseK  a  stripling,  and  the  love  of 
his  "  boys,"  as  he  forever  called  them,  as  tender  and 
inextinguishable  at  the  end  as  at  the  beginning. 
Who  will  undertake  to  count  the  lives  he  touched 
and  kindled  and  ennobled,  or  to  reckon  the  men, 
in  every  possible  rank  and  calling  in  hfe,  to  whom 
his  counsels  and  his  maxims  were  guiding  princi- 
ples never  to  be  forgotten!  Great  teacher,  great 
leader,  great  administrator,  but,  greatest  of  all,  true 
father  of  all  his  sons ! 

My  friend  and  brother,  if  I  may  venture  to  call 
you  so,  I  congratulate  you  that  yours  is  the  rare 
privilege  of  following  men  like  these :  the  man  of 
rectitude,  the  man  of  vision,  the  man  of  large 
and  comprehensive  sympathies,  and,  presiding  over 
them  all,  the  man  of  paternal  wisdom  and  of  a 
child-like  and  Christ-like  benignity.  Surely  these 
are  types  which  you  and  all  of  us  may  well  be 
glad  to  remember  to-day.     They  stand  for  that 

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spirit  and  purpose  which  have  most  of  all  made 
this  college  a  power  for  God  and  for  good.  May 
they  never  fade  out  of  these  scenes ;  and  may  they 
find  in  your  administration  new  and  nobler  illus- 
tration! You  come  to  your  large  tasks  under 
happy  auguries,  and  with  a  wide  and  generous 
sympathy  on  every  hand  to  cheer  you  forward. 
May  your  work  here  be  worthy  of  the  eminent 
gifts  which  you  have  elsewhere  revealed,  and  of 
the  high  and  unselfish  devotion  which  hitherto 
has  adorned  your  use  of  them !  The  clouds  are 
past,  and  a  new  day  begins  to  dawn  once  more  for 
your  beloved  Alma  Mater.  May  it  shine  more  and 
more  into  the  perfect  day ! 

I  end,  as  I  began,  with  other  words  than  my 
own.  Speaking  for  the  last  time  amid  these 
scenes,  the  orator  of  fifty  years  ago  breathed  out 
of  a  full  heart  this  aspiration  for  Union  College  — 
it  is  the  prayer  of  his  children  and  his  children's 
children  to-day: 

Honored  Parent,  thus  far  you  have  been  the  nursery 
of  free  spirits,  of  a  comprehensive  and  large-minded,  but 
reverent  philosophy  —  be  it  never  otherwise !  And  when 
the  term  of  fif  tj'  years  has  again  rolled  away,  and  your  chil- 
dren and  your  children's  children  shall  come  back  to  cele- 
brate your  praise  and  write  up  your  centennial  record, 
may  it  be  found  that  this  is  the  home  of  brave  and  true 
men — of  men  braver,  truer,  and  hoher  than  we ;  that  better 
and  wiser  spirits  have  risen  to  direct  your  councils ;  and 
that  a  higher  scholarship  and  a  deeper  sanctity  are  send- 
ing forth  from  these  shrines  rich  blessings  on  the  world.i 

1 "  Semi-centeimial  Discourse  of  the  Rev.  Alonzo  Potter,  D.  D.," 

pp.  28,  29. 

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THE  HEROISMS  OF  THE  UNKNOWN 

ORATION 

Delivered  July  2,  1893,  at  the  Dedication  of  the  Monument 
Commemorative  of  the  Men  of  New  York  who  Fell  at 
Gettysburg,  July  2,   1863 


THE  HEROISMS  OF  THE  UNKNOWN 


THIRTY  years  ago  to-day,  these  peaceful  scenes 
were  echoing  with  the  roar  and  din  of  what 
a  calm  and  unimpassioned  historian,  writing  of  it 
long  years  afterward,  described  as  the  "greatest 
battle-field  of  the  New  World."  Thirty  years  ago 
to-day  the  hearts  of  some  thirty  millions  of  people 
turned  to  this  spot  with  various  but  eager  emo- 
tions, and  watched  here  the  crash  of  two  armies 
which  gathered  in  their  vast  embrace  the  flower 
of  a  great  people.  Never,  declared  the  seasoned 
soldiers  who  listened  to  the  roar  of  the  enemy's 
artillery,  had  they  heard  anything  that  was  com- 
parable with  it.^  Now  and  then  it  paused,  as 
though  the  very  throats  of  the  mighty  guns  were 
tired ;  but  only  for  a  little.  Not  for  one  day,  nor 
for  two,  but  for  three,  raged  the  awful  conflict, 
while  the  Republic  gave  its  best  life  to  redeem  its 
honor,  and  the  stain  of  all  previous  blundering  and 
faltering  was  washed  white  forever  with  the  blood 
of  its  patriots  and  martyrs. 

1  "Abraham  Lincoln,"  Nicolay  and  Hay,  vol.  vii.,  p.  241. 

7  97 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

How  far  away  it  all  seems,  as  we  stand  here  to- 
day! How  profound  the  contrast  between  those 
hours  and  days  of  bloodshed  and  the  still  serenity 
of  nature  as  it  greets  us  now!  The  graves  that 
cluster  around  us  here,  the  peaceful  resting-places 
of  a  nation's  heroes,  are  green  and  fair  ;  and, 
within  them,  they  who  fell  here,  after  life's  fierce 
and  fitful  fever,  are  sleeping  well. 

And  we  are  here  to  tell  the  world  to-day  that 
we  have  not  forgotten  them.  It  seems  a  tardy 
honor  that  we  come  to  pay  them;  but  through  all 
the  years  that  have  come  and  gone  we  have  kept 
their  memories  green.  No  single  anniversary  of 
their  great  achievement  has  returned  that  they 
who  count  it  chiefest  honor  that  they  may  call 
these  men  brothers  have  not  come  here  to  bring 
their  grateful  homage,  and  to  recite  the  splendid 
story  of  their  splendid  deeds.  Nay,  more  —  in  far- 
off  towns  and  hamlets,  north  and  east  and  west, 
in  every  home  from  which  they  came,  no  year  has 
passed  that  ardent  voices  have  not  sung  their  valor 
and  iron  pens  traced  upon  imperishable  pages  the 
story  of  their  sacrifices.  It  is  a  long  day,  indeed, 
from  that  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1863  to  this  in 
1893 ;  but  if  we  seem  to  be  late  in  raising  here  this 
monument,  you  who  behold  it  to-day  will  own  that 
it  is  not  unworthy  of  the  men  and  the  deeds  that  it 
commemorates. 

I  may  not  rehearse  the  story  of  those  deeds  this 
afternoon.  Already  they  have  become  a  part  of  our 
common  heritage,  and  have  passed  by  a  process  of 
spiritual  assimilation  into  the  very  fiber  of  the  na- 

98 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

tion's  life.  There  is  no  school-boy  now  who  has 
not  read  the  peerless  and  incomparable  story, — 
read  it,  and  flushed  and  glowed  with  the  fire  of  a 
passionate  patriotism  while  he  read  it,  —  all  the 
way  along  from  that  first  moment  when,  long  be- 
fore the  dawn  of  July  1st,  "  Meade  himself,"  as  the 
historian  has  described  him,^  "  came  upon  the  field 
at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  a  pale,  tired-looking, 
hollow-eyed  man,  worn  with  toil  and  lack  of  sleep, 
with  little  of  the  conventional  hero  about  him,  but 
stout  in  heart  and  clear  in  mind,"  —  on  through 
that  early  morning  when  the  heroic  Reynolds, 
grasping  the  situation  with  a  gi*eat  commander's 
swift  intuition,  dashed  along  the  Emmitsbui'g 
road  to  seize,  if  he  might,  the  great  opportunity 
that  confronted  him,  and  a  little  later  was  shot 
dead  by  a  bullet  through  the  brain, —  on  through 
that  bloody  morning  and  afternoon  when  Hancock 
and  Howard  came,  when  Slocum  seized  and  occu- 
pied his  vantage-gi'ound,  when  our  own  Sickles, 
with  his  dusty  and  travel-stained  veterans,  came  in 
haste  from  Emmitsburg  and  forced  the  fighting, — 
yes,  on  through  all  that  memorable  night  that  fol- 
lowed, and  that  knew  no  rest  or  pause  of  hurry- 
ing battalions  and  tramp  of  armed  men, —  on,  till 
the  morning  dawned  that  ushered  in  this  tremen- 
dous and  never-to-be-forgotten  day, — how  well, 
now,  we  remember  its  incomparable  story,  and 
with  awe  and  reverence  recall  it! 

For  here,  friends  and  countrymen,  the  world  wit- 
nessed a  battle-field  disfigured  by  no  littleness  and 

1  "Abraham  Ldncoln/'  Nicolay  and  Hay,  vol.  vii,  p.  246. 

99 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

spoiled  by  no  treachery.  So  long  as  the  world  lasts 
men  will  differ  about  the  best  strategy  in  war,  and 
the  schoolmen  in  arms  will  dispute  concerning  the 
wisdom  of  commanders,  and  the  quality  of  their 
generalship.  But  though  the  critics  may  differ  as 
to  what  might  have  been  done  here,  no  criticism, 
however  clever,  can  at  all  belittle  that  which  was 
the  one  supreme  splendor  of  this  day  and  this  field. 
Here  the  world  saw  a  great  army  confronted  with 
a  great  crisis  and  dealing  with  it  in  a  great  way. 
Here,  for  a  time  at  any  rate,  all  lesser  jealousies 
and  rivalries  disappeared  in  the  one  supreme  ri- 
valry how  each  one  should  best  serve  his  country 
and,  if  need  be,  die  for  her !  Listen  to  the  key-note 
of  those  great  days  as  the  general  commanding 
himself  struck  it: 

Headquarters  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  June 
30,  1863. — The  commanding  general  requests  that,  pre- 
vious to  the  engagement  soon  expected  with  the  enemy, 
corps  and  other  commanding  officers  will  address  their 
troops,  explaining  to  them  briefly  the  immense  issues  in- 
volved in  the  struggle.  The  enemy  are  on  our  soil ;  the 
whole  country  now  looks  anxiously  to  this  army  to  de- 
Mver  it  fi*om  the  presence  of  the  foe ;  oui'  failure  to  do  so 
wiU  leave  us  no  such  welcome  as  the  swelling  of  millions 
of  hearts  with  pride  and  joy  at  our  success  would  give 
to  every  soldier  of  this  army.  Homes,  firesides,  domestic 
altars  are  involved.  The  army  has  fought  well  hereto- 
fore ;  it  is  believed  that  it  will  fight  more  desperately  and 
bravely  than  ever,  if  it  is  addressed  in  fitting  terms.  .  .  . 
By  command  of  Major- General  Meade. 

S.  Williams,  Assistant  Adj.-Gen.i 

1  See  Greeley's  "  The  American  Conflict,"  vol.  ii,  p.  377. 
lOO 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

Sucli  words  were  not  wasted.  Whatever  else 
was  wanting,  here  were  not  wanting  a  high  pui-- 
pose  and  heroic  souls  to  follow  it. 

And  so,  as  we  come  here  to-day,  my  country- 
men, we  come,  first  of  all,  to  honor  that  which  in 
human  nature  is  the  best  —  unflinching  courage, 
unfaltering  sacrifice,  and  over  all,  a  patriot's  pure 
devotion  to  the  right.  Let  no  man  say  that  in 
raising  this  monument  to  our  dead  heroes  we  are 
setting  up  one  more  altar  wherewith  to  glorify  the 
cruel  god  of  war.  There  is,  indeed,  no  one  of  us 
here,  I  am  persuaded,  who  does  not  see  in  war,  and 
its  attendant  train  of  evils  and  horrors,  that  of 
which  any  man  or  nation  may  wisely  be  in  dread. 
There  is  no  one  of  us  here,  I  am  no  less  persuaded, 
who,  listening  to  that  blatant  jingoism  that,  from 
some  safe  retreat,  from  time  to  time  shoots  its  en- 
venomed fang  of  swagger  and  of  hate  to  inflame, 
if  it  may,  a  great  people  to  some  silly  deed  of  arms 
alike  unworthy  of  its  power  and  its  enlightenment 
—  there  is  no  one  of  us,  I  say,  who,  listening  to 
such  foolish  talk,  does  not  hear  it  with  equal 
amusement  and  contempt.  But,  all  the  same,  we 
may  not  forget  that  there  may  come  in  the  his- 
tory of  every  nation  emergencies  when,  all  the 
resources  of  diplomacy  and  all  the  cleverness  of 
statesmanship  having  been  exhausted,  there  re- 
mains no  other  arbitrament  but  the  sword,  no  last 
court  of  appeal  but  to  arms.  And  sm*ely  we  who 
have  lived,  as  have  many  of  us  here,  through  that 
memorable  era  which  preceded  the  struggle  which 
we  are  here  to-day  to  commemorate  can  never  for- 

7*  lOI 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

get  that  there  were  ideas  which  were  at  war,  first 
of  all;  and  that  the  life  of  this  Republic  was 
bound  up  with  the  triumph  of  those  ideas  for 
which  this  battle-field  must  forever  stand  —  yes, 
their  triumph,  peacefully  if  it  might  be,  but  with 
sword  and  shot  and  shell  if  it  must  be. 

Believe  me,  my  countrymen,  we  need  to  remem- 
ber this !  Into  this  sacred  and  august  presence, — 
the  presence  both  of  the  dead  and  of  the  living, — 
and  amid  these  gracious  and  tender  ceremonies,  I 
would  not  introduce  one  discordant  note.  It  is 
well  that  as  the  years  go  by  the  rancors  that  once 
divided  children  of  the  same  Republic  should  be 
forgiven  and  forgotten.  But  there  are  other  things 
that  may  not  be  forgotten,  and  it  is  at  our  peril 
that  we  forget  them.  We  may  never  forget  that 
the  struggle  of  which  these  graves  are  the  wit- 
nesses was  a  struggle  for  the  eternal  righteousness. 
We  may  never  forget  that  the  cause  which  was 
substantially  decided  here  was  the  cause  of  free- 
dom, and  justice,  and  the  everlasting  equities,  as 
against  a  despotism  which,  however  amiable  its  or- 
dinary exhibitions,  had  in  it,  as  Sumner  said  of  it, 
the  essence  of  that  "crime  that  degi'ades  men."  We 
may  never  forget  that  behind  the  question  of  the 
Union  was  the  question  of  unpaid  labor,  of  bartered 
manhood,  of  a  traffic  which  dealt  in  human  hearts. 
We  may  never  forget  that  the  greatest  victory  in 
the  War  of  the  Rebellion  was  the  triumph  of  gi'eat 
principles.  And,  above  aU,  we  may  never  forget 
that  a  nation  which  has  won  its  freedom  from  dis- 
honor with  a  great  price  can  maintain  that  free- 

I02 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

dom  only  by  struggles  and  sacrifices  equally  great. 
These  halcyon  seas  on  which  we  float,  0  my 
countrymen,  they  are  not  always  friendly  to  a  na- 
tion's best  well-being.  The  institutions  which,  at 
such  cost,  we  have  rescued  from  disintegration 
and  ruin  will  not  long  survive  unless  you  and  I 
are  concerned  as  to  those  foundations  on  which 
they  rest,  and  unless,  above  all,  we  watch  with 
jealous  eye  whatever  alien  hand  would  abuse  or 
pervert  them.  It  was  the  tragedy  of  that  struggle 
which  we  are  here  to-day  to  remember,  that  it  was 
an  internecine  struggle.  They  were  of  ourselves 
who  lifted  the  flag  of  revolt  and  disowned  the 
authority  of  the  government;  and  it  may  be  — 
alas,  only  lately  we  have  been  reminded  how 
easily!  —  that  those  in  high  places  shall  even  be 
the  apologists  of  the  red  flag  of  anarchy  and  of  the 
red  hands  of  its  ensanguined  followers.  This  day, 
this  service,  and  most  of  all  these  oui*  heroic  dead, 
stand  —  let  us  here  swear  never  to  forget  it  —  for 
the  sanctity  of  law,  for  the  endm-ing  supremacy  of 
just  and  equitable  government,  and  so  for  the  lib- 
erties of  a  law-abiding  people. 

In  their  honor  we  come  here,  my  brothers,  to 
consecrate  this  monumental  shaft.  What,  now,  is 
that  one  feature  in  this  occasion  which  lends  to  it 
its  supreme  and  most  pathetic  interest?  There 
are  other  monuments  in  this  city  of  a  nation's 
dead,  distinguished  as  these  graves  that  lie  about 
us  here  can  never  be.  There  are  the  tombs  and 
memorials  of  heroes  whose  names  are  blazoned 
upon  them,  and  whose  kindred  and  friends,  as  they 

105 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

have  stood  round  them,  have  repeopled  this  scene 
with  their  vanished  forms,  have  recalled  their 
lineaments,  have  recited  their  deeds,  and  have 
stood  in  tender  homage  around  forms  which  were 
once  to  them  a  living  joy  and  presence.  But  for 
us  to-day  there  is  no  such  privilege,  no  such  ten- 
der individuality  of  grief.  These  are  our  un- 
known dead.  Out  of  whatever  homes  they  came 
we  cannot  tell.  What  were  their  names,  their 
lineage,  their  human  mien  and  aspect,  of  this  no 
less  we  are  ignorant.  One  thing  only  we  know. 
They  wore  our  uniform.  In  one  form  or  another, 
by  cap,  or  sleeve,  or  weapon — somewhere  upon 
the  scarred  and  mutilated  forms  that  once  lay 
djdng  or  dead  within  sight  of  these  historic  hills 
there  was  the  token  of  that  Empire  State  whence 
they  had  come,  whence  we  have  come,  and  that 
makes  them  and  us,  in  the  bond  of  that  dear  and 
noble  commonwealth,  forever  brothers.  And  that 
is  enough  for  us.  We  need  to  know  no  more. 
From  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  and  the  St.  Law- 
rence, from  the  wilds  of  the  Catskills  and  the 
Adirondacks,  from  the  salt  shores  of  Long  Island, 
and  from  the  fresh  lakes  of  Geneva  and  Onon- 
daga and  their  peers,  from  the  forge  and  the  farm, 
the  shop  and  the  factory,  from  college  halls  and 
crowded  tenements,  all  alike,  they  came  here  and 
fought  and  fell  —  and  shall  never,  never  be  for- 
gotten. Our  great  unknown  defenders!  Ah,  my 
countrymen,  here  we  touch  the  foundations  of  a 
people's  safety — of  a  nation's  greatness.  We  are 
wont  to  talk  much  of  the  world's  need  of  great 

104 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

leaders,  and  theii*  proverb  is  often  on  om*  lips  who 
said  of  old,  "  Woe  unto  the  land  whose  king  is  a 
child."  Yes,  verily,  that  is  a  dreary  outlook  for 
any  people  when  among  her  sons  there  is  none 
worthy  to  lead  her  armies,  to  guide  her  councils, 
to  interpret  her  laws,  or  to  administer  them.  But 
that  is  a  still  drearier  outlook  when  in  any  nation, 
however  wise  her  rulers  and  noble  and  heroic  her 
commanders,  there  is  no  greatness  in  the  people 
equal  to  a  gi'eat  vision  in  an  emergency,  and  a 
great  com^age  with  which  to  seize  it.  And  that, 
I  maintain,  was  the  supreme  glory  of  the  heroes 
whom  we  commemorate  to-day.  Do  you  tell  me 
that  they  were  unknown — that  they  commanded 
no  battalions,  determined  no  policies,  sat  in  no 
military  councils,  rode  at  the  head  of  no  regi- 
ments ?  Be  it  so !  All  the  more  are  they  the 
fitting  representatives  of  you  and  me — the  people. 
Never  in  all  history,  I  venture  to  affirm,  was  there 
a  war  whose  aims,  whose  policy,  whose  sacrifices 
were  so  absolutely  determined  by  the  people,  that 
great  body  of  the  unknown,  in  which,  after  all, 
lay  the  strength  and  the  power  of  the  Republic. 
When  some  one  reproached  Lincoln  for  the  seem- 
ing hesitancy  of  his  pohcy,  he  answered, — gi-eat 
seer  as  well  as  gi-eat  soul  that  he  was, —  "I  stand 
for  the  people.  I  am  going  just  as  fast  and  as  far 
as  I  can  feel  them  behind  me." 

And  so,  as  we  come  here  to-day  and  plant  this 
column,  consecrating  it  to  its  enduring  dignity 
and  honor  as  the  memorial  of  our  unknown  dead, 
we  are  doing,  as  I  cannot  but  think,  the  fittest 

105 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

possible  deed  that  we  could  do.  These  unknown 
that  lie  about  us  here  —  ah,  what  are  they  but 
the  peerless  representatives,  elect  forever  by  the 
deadly  gage  of  battle,  of  those  sixty  millions  of 
people,  as  to-day  they  are,  whose  rights  and  hb- 
erties  they  achieved!  Unknown  to  us  are  their 
names;  unknown  to  them  were  the  greatness  and 
the  glory  of  then*  deeds!  And  is  not  this,  bro- 
thers of  New  York,  the  story  of  the  world's  best 
manhood,  and  of  its  best  achievement?  The 
work  by  the  great  unknown,  for  the  great  un- 
known— the  work  that,  by  fidelity  in  the  ranks, 
courage  in  the  trenches,  obedience  to  the  voice  of 
command,  patience  at  the  picket-line,  vigilance  at 
the  outpost,  is  done  by  that  great  host  that  bear 
no  splendid  insignia  of  rank,  and  figure  in  no  com- 
mander's despatches — this  work,  with  its  largest 
and  incalculable  and  unforeseen  consequences  for 
a  whole  people  —  is  not  this  work,  which  we  are 
here  to-day  to  commemorate,  at  once  the  noblest 
and  most  vast  ?  Who  can  tell  us  now  the  names, 
even,  of  those  that  sleep  about  us  here ;  and  who 
of  them  could  guess,  on  that  eventful  day  when 
here  they  gave  their  lives  for  duty  and  their  coun- 
try, how  great  and  how  far-reaching  would  be  the 
victory  they  should  win? 

And  thus  we  learn,  my  brothers,  where  a  na- 
tion's strength  resides.  When  the  Grerman  em- 
peror, after  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  was  crowned 
in  the  SaUes  des  Grlaces  at  Versailles,  on  the  ceil- 
ing of  the  great  hall  in  which  that  memorable 
ceremony   took   place   there   were   inscribed   the 

1 06 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

words :  "  The  King  Rules  by  His  Own  Authority." 
"Not  so,"  said  that  gi'and  man  of  blood  and  iron 
who,  most  of  all,  had  welded  Germany  into  one 
mighty  people  —  "not  so;  'The  kings  of  the  earth 
shall  rule  under  me,  saith  the  Lord.'  Trusting  in 
the  tried  love  of  the  whole  people,  we  leave  the 
country's  futm-e  in  God's  hands!"  Ah,  my 
countrymen,  it  was  not  this  man  or  that  man 
that  saved  om'  Republic  in  its  hour  of  supreme 
peril.  Let  us  not,  indeed,  forget  her  great  lead- 
ers, great  generals,  great  statesmen,  and,  greatest 
among  them  all,  her  great  martyr  and  President, 
Lincoln.  But  there  was  no  one  of  these  then  who 
would  not  have  told  us  that  which  we  may  all  see 
so  plainly  now,  that  it  was  not  they  who  saved 
the  country,  but  the  host  of  her  gi-eat  unknown. 
These,  with  their  steadfast  loyalty,  these  with  their 
cheerful  sacrifices,  and  these,  most  of  all  with 
their  simple  faith  in  God  and  in  the  triumph  of 
his  right  —  these  they  were  who  saved  us !  Let 
us  never  cease  to  honor  them  and  to  trust  them ; 
and  let  us  see  to  it  that  neither  we  nor  they  shall 
ever  cease  to  trust  in  that  overarching  Providence 
that  all  along  has  led  them. 

This  field,  you  know,  was  not  the  field  originally 
chosen  by  Meade  and  his  lieutenants  whereon  to 
fight  this  battle.  The  historian  whom  I  have  al- 
ready quoted  tells  us  that  "  while  Meade  was  send- 
ing his  advance  to  occupy  Gettysburg,  it  was  with 
no  thought  of  fighting  there.  It  seemed  to  him 
merely  a  point  from  which  to  observe  and  occupy 
the  enemy's  advance  and  mask  his  own  move- 

107 


The  Heroisms  of  the  Unknown 

ment  to  what  seemed  to  him  a  better  line  in  the 
rear.  .  .  .  But  in  spite  of  these  prudent  inten- 
tions .  .  .  two  formidable  armies  were  approach- 
ing each  other  at  their  utmost  speed  all  through 
the  30th  of  June,  driven  by  the  irresistible  laws  of 
human  action — or,  let  us  reverently  say,  by  the 
hand  of  Providence."  ^  Yes,  by  the  hand  of  Provi- 
dence. "Trusting  in  the  tried  love  of  the  whole 
people,"  said  Bismarck,  "we  leave  the  country's 
future "  —  in  the  people's  hands  ?  Nay,  but  "  in 
Grod's  hands"!  "If  I  did  not  believe,"  said  this 
great  leader  of  his  time,  "  in  the  divine  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  I  would  not  serve  my  country 
another  hour.  Take  my  faith  from  me,  and  you 
take  my  country  too ! "  Pregnant  words,  not  alone 
for  these  times,  but  for  all  times.  It  was  God  in 
the  people  that  made  the  heroism  which,  in  these 
unknown  ones,  we  are  here  to-day  to  honor.  It 
must  forever  be  Grod  in  and  with  the  people  that 
shall  make  the  nation  great  and  wise  and  strong 
for  any  great  emergency. 

In  that  faith,  we  come  here  to  rear  this  monu- 
ment and  to  lay  the  tribute  of  our  love  and  grati- 
tude upon  these  gi'aves.  May  no  alien  or  vandal 
hand  ever  profane  their  grand  repose  who  slumber 
here !  And  when  the  sons  of  freedom,  now  unborn, 
through  generations  to  come  shall  gather  here  to 
sing  again  the  praises  of  these  unknown  martyrs 
for  the  flag,  may  they  kneel  down  beside  these 
graves  and  swear  anew  allegiance  to  their  God, 
their  country,  and  the  right ! 

1  "Abraham  Lincoln,"  Nieolay  and  Hay,  vol.  vii,  pp.  234,  236. 

io8 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  SCIENCE  TO 
MODERN   LIFE 

A   LECTURE 

Delivered  before  the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences, 
February  19,  1880 


THE   RELATIONS   OF   SCIENCE  TO 
MODERN  LIFE 


THIS  is  the  second  of  the  two  courses  of  lec- 
tures given  dui'ing  the  current  season  under 
the  auspices  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences. I  have  been  asked  to  take  part  in  it,  not,  as 
must  be  obvious  enough  to  this  audience,  because 
of  any  scientific  qualifications  for  such  a  task,  but 
because  the  presence  and  the  participation  here  of 
a  layman  in  science  may  help  to  set  before  the 
public  the  wider  scope  and  larger  aim  for  which 
the  Association  exists. 

In  pursuance  of  that  purpose,  it  may  be  worth 
while  briefly  to  review  the  history  of  the  Associa- 
tion, and  to  indicate  what  it  hopes  to  do,  by  a  brief 
recapitulation  of  what,  thus  far,  it  has  done. 

It  cannot  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  us 
who  are  New  Yorkers  that  the  Institution  whose 
guests  we  are  this  evening  has  sturdy  roots  run- 
ning down  and  back  into  an  honorable,  if  not 
greatly  venerable,  past,  and  that  in  a  community 
which  is  supposed,  especially  by  those  wise  men 

1 1 1 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

who  come  to  us  from  our  own  East,  to  be  given 
over  to  money-making  and  money-squandering 
there  should  be  a  society  which,  for  more  than  a 
generation,  has  been  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  sci- 
ence in  its  most  generous  spirit,  and  to  the  dissemi- 
nation of  knowledge  in  its  widest  sense. 

In  the  year  1818  there  was  incorporated  in  the 
city  of  New  York  a  society  known  as  the  Lyceum 
of  Natural  History.  A  few  professional  men  and 
others  then  resident  in  this  city  had  become  inter- 
ested in  the  study  of  natural  history,  and  pre- 
vious to  the  date  which  I  have  just  mentioned  had 
associated  themselves  for  that  purpose  in  a  some- 
what private  and  informal  way.  The  Republic 
was  then  not  forty  years  old.  New  York  had  been 
crippled  by  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  and  again 
by  that  of  the  year  1812;  the  population  of  this 
island  was  but  a  mere  handful  of  people  compared 
with  its  inhabitants  to-day;  the  community  was 
engrossed  in  the  struggle  of  developing  a  new  life 
in  the  paths  of  trade  and  commerce,  and  in  repair- 
ing the  losses  which  had  accumulated  through  its 
past  misfortunes.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  con- 
dition of  things  less  calculated  to  create  the  calm 
and  unvexed  atmosphere  in  which  the  student  is 
born  and  a  love  of  generous  learning  bred  and 
nurtured.  But  the  instincts  of  an  inherited  cul- 
ture were  strong  in  the  breasts  of  some  New 
Yorkers;  and  there  were  others,  through  whose  an- 
cestral lineage  no  glories  of  hereditary  learning 
trailed,  who  still  looked  at  life  with  that  native 
wisdom  which  sees  in  the  secrets  of  nature  a  chal- 

112 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

lenge  to  the  curiosity  and  a  worthy  theater  for  the 
discipline  and  education  of  the  intellect.  The 
meager  records  still  surviving  of  the  Lyceum  of 
Natural  History  have  not  preserved  the  names  of 
these  men ;  but  the  memory  of  them  still  sui'vives, 
and  must  be  fresh,  I  think,  in  the  minds  of  some 
who  hear  me  to-night.  Among  the  incorporators 
of  the  Lyceum  was  Professor  John  Torrey,  whose 
name  will  long  endure  as  one  of  the  most  eminent 
among  all  those  that  have  been  connected  with 
the  history  of  American  science.  Professor  Torrey 
was  a  profound  student,  an  untiring  investigator, 
and  in  the  domains  of  botany,  mineralogy,  and 
chemistry  a  successful  explorer  and  discoverer. 
But  he  was  more :  for  besides  the  gift  of  a  preemi- 
nent insight  into  nature,  he  had  the  still  rarer  gift 
of  communicating  something  of  that  insight  to 
others.  He  was  not  merely  an  enthusiast  himself, 
but  he  knew  how  to  kindle  enthusiasm  in  his  pu- 
pils; and  because  of  this  rare  power  he  drew  about 
him  hundreds  of  young  men  for  whom  scientific 
studies  acquired  an  interest  which  made  them  in 
turn  students  and  explorers  scarcely  less  enthusi- 
astic than  their  gifted  preceptor. 

It  was  through  the  agency  of  Professor  Tor- 
rey, Dr.  John  Jay,  and  others  hke-minded,  that 
the  New  Yoi*k  Lyceum  of  Natural  History  came 
to  have  a  corporate  existence.  The  Association 
speedily  attracted  to  its  fellowship  large  numbers 
of  naturalists  and  others,  who  won  renown  for 
themselves  and  for  their  country.  They  made 
these  first  stirs  or  birth-throes  of  scientific  life  in 
8  1 13 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

America  known  to  men  of  science  beyond  the  sea ; 
and  if,  to-day,  our  scientific  schools  and  scholars 
are  both  known  and  honored  abroad,  we  unlet- 
tered traders  of  Manhattan  may  comfort  ourselves 
with  the  recollection  that  among  the  earliest 
achievements  which  won  for  us  such  recognition 
were  those  of  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  History  in 
the  city  of  New  York.  It  had  at  one  time  a  mu- 
seum of  its  own,  filled  with  interesting  and,  in 
many  instances,  rare  and  unique  specimens.  It 
had  a  library  in  which  was  to  be  found  one  of  the 
best  collections  of  books  upon  subjects  relating 
to  natural  science  then  existing  in  this  country. 
Unfortunately,  the  former  was  destroyed  by  fire, 
the  Lyceum  losing  at  one  blow  both  its  home  and 
some  of  its  choicest  treasures;  and  in  that  catas- 
trophe the  Society  received  a  blow  from  which  it 
has  scarcely  even  yet  rallied.  Happily,  its  library 
was  preserved,  and  through  the  courtesy  of  the 
directors  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History  has  now  a  place  of  safe  deposit  near  Cen- 
tral Park.  The  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences 
has  become  the  heir  and  successor  of  the  Lyceum 
of  Natural  History,  and  to-day,  upon  a  somewhat 
broader  basis,  invokes  the  sympathy  and  coopera- 
tion of  the  citizens  of  New  York. 

What  is  it  which  would  seem  to  entitle  it  to 
both?  Neither  the  disciples  of  science  nor  its 
masters  are  very  engaging  personages  to  most  of 
us.  A  vivacious  young  person,  more  fond  of  the 
drama  than  of  the  school-room,  and  more  inclined 
to   laughter  than  to  scientific   investigation,  re- 

114 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

turned  from  the  play  one  evening  "with  the  ex- 
clamation that  she  had  "  at  length  discovered  the 
nse  of  a  professor."  In  her  school-gM  days  that 
serious  and  somewhat  abstracted  personage  had 
appeared  to  her,  she  owned,  simply  as  an  inven- 
tion of  modern  and  somewhat  mitigated  torture. 
She  never  could  understand  his  explanations 
(which,  as  she  never  pretended  to  listen  to  them, 
was  not  surprising),  and,  owing  to  the  want  of 
something  or  other  in  the  atmosphere,  his  experi- 
ments would  rarely  "  go  off,"  as  she  expressed  it. 
But  when  she  went  to  the  play  she  discovered,  she 
said,  that  the  professor  had  his  place,  if  not  in 
science,  then  in  art.  The  dramatic  author  had  in- 
troduced him,  with  signal  success,  in  very  ill-fit- 
ting garments,  green  spectacles,  and  a  shocking 
bad  hat.  He  had  an  umbrella  which  he  always 
kept  dropping  at  the  most  inopportune  moment, 
and  he  persistently  interjected  remarks  which 
were  deliciously  irrelevant  and  hopelessly  unintel- 
ligible. In  a  word,  declared  this  gay  young  crea- 
ture, "  evidently  the  professor  was  created  to  be 
a  foil^  to  throw  the  walking  gentleman  and  the 
engaging  (and  generally  engaged)  young  heroine 
into  more  conspicuous  and  taking  relief."  And 
thus  both  the  professor  and  his  pursuits  became, 
like  a  haystack  in  the  foreground,  or  a  bit  of 
moldy  leather  in  a  picture,  something  which  by 
mere  force  of  contrast  lent  to  the  rest  of  life  an  ad- 
ditional charm  and  grace ! 

It  would,  perhaps,  be  unjust  to  say  that  all  of 
us  think  of  scientific  men  and  theu'  occupations  in 

115 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

that  way ;  but  I  think  it  is  true  that  there  are  very 
few  people  who  work  so  much  outside  of  active 
and  demonstrative  sympathy,  or  who  have  so 
largely  to  content  themselves  with  the  reflection 
that  study,  like  vii'tue,  "  is  its  own  reward." 
There  is  one  class  of  persons,  though  happily  it  is 
growing  daily  smaller,  who  regard  scientific  in- 
quiries as  only  a  thinly  veiled  form  of  downright 
atheism.  To  them  a  student  who  is  simply  turn- 
ing over  the  pages  of  one  of  God's  great  volumes — 
I  mean  the  volume  of  nature  (sometimes,  I  think, 
more  reverently  than  some  of  us  turn  over  the 
pages  of  that  other  volume  which  we  call  Revela- 
tion) —  to  such  persons,  I  say,  a  student  of  nature 
is  simply  and  of  deliberate  purpose  a  destroyer  of 
the  faith.  They  have  apparently  less  confidence 
in  the  enduring  character  of  God's  truth  than  they 
have  in  the  power  of  man's  destructiveness ;  and  it 
is  the  shame  and  dishonor  of  our  modern  Chris- 
tianity that  it  has  too  often  hurled  invective 
instead  of  advancing  argument,  and  imputed  un- 
worthy motives  instead  of  disproving  facts.  I 
have  no  wish  to  be  misunderstood  here,  and  I  will 
not  be.  There  has  been  undoubtedly  much  in  the 
attitude  of  scientific  men,  here  and  there,  that  has 
shown  them,  as  individuals,  to  be  hostile  to  revela- 
tion and  skeptical  as  to  its  Author.  But  it  has  not 
always  been  considered  that,  when  angry  and  con- 
temptuous words  have  been  hurled  back  from  the 
battlements  of  science,  it  has  more  than  once  been 
because  they  had  been  provoked  by  words  still 
angrier  and  more  contemptuous,  spoken  by  those 

ii6 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

who  professed  to  be  ruled  by  a  gentler  sway  and 
to  follow  a  more  benignant  Master,  I  remember 
at  this  moment,  as  some  of  you  may  do,  some 
words  spoken  at  an  annual  meeting  of  the  British 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  held 
some  years  ago,  I  think  in  Scotland,  first  by  Mr. 
Huxley  and  then  by  Mr.  Tyndall.  Those  utter- 
ances gave  a  rude  shock  to  the  feelings  and  behef 
of  large  numbers  of  people ;  but  it  was  not  known, 
or  if  known  was  not  remembered  then,  that  they 
were  provoked  by  an  utterly  unprovoked  attack 
made  by  an  English  bishop,  when  neither  of  the 
men  whom  he  assailed  was  present  to  defend  him- 
self, and  when  everything  in  the  occasion  made  it 
impossible  to  contradict  him.  Once  more,  I  say, 
let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  am  not  here  as 
the  defender  or  apologist  of  Messrs.  Huxley  and 
Tyndall.  Men  of  science  lose  their  tempers  some- 
times, and  say  hasty  and  regrettable  words,  like 
clergymen  and  other  fallible  people ;  but  they  have 
often  had  strong  provocation,  if  not  positive  ex- 
cuse, in  the  utterly  unsympathetic  and  even  ag- 
gressively hostile  attitude  of  those  whom  they  are 
striving  to  enlighten. 

And  then,  again,  there  is  another  class  of  per- 
sons to  whom  science  is  not  so  much  an  uninter- 
esting, or  an  atheistic,  as  an  unprofitable  thing. 
They  can  see  the  use  of  philanthropy,  for  the  phil- 
anthropist aims  to  help  the  poor,  to  rescue  the  de- 
graded, to  instruct  the  ignorant,  and  to  care  for 
the  neglected  and  the  outcast.  Charity  opens  her 
tender  arms,  and  little  children  gather  at  her  side 

8*  I  ly 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modem  Life 

and  take  shelter  beneath  her  ample  robes.  The 
shackle  falls  from  the  slave,  and  the  scales  from 
the  eyes  of  the  blind.  And  then,  over  against  all 
the  wealth  and  enterprise  and  luxury  which  are  the 
characteristics  of  our  modern  civilization,  there 
rises  so  vast  and  so  wretched  an  army  of  the  dis- 
eased and  the  uncared  for,  that  some  of  us  think 
we  cannot  do  too  much  to  succor  and  relieve  it. 
But  the  services  and  the  claims  of  science  are 
less  obvious.  "We  see  how  it  has  vexed  and  dis- 
turbed the  preachers  and  the  theologians,  and  how 
it  has  grappled  with  great  problems  which  it  has 
not  always  solved.  Both  the  men  of  science  and 
their  ecclesiastical  adversaries,  when  contending, 
like  the  archangel  Michael  and  the  devil,  about 
not  the  body  of  Moses,  but  the  body  of  man,  re- 
mind us  sometimes,  by  their  worn  and  jaded  as- 
pect, of  that  compositor  in  a  Parisian  printing- 
office  who,  after  wi'estling  from  midnight  until 
morning  with  the  abominable  and  hopelessly  ob- 
scure manuscript  of  a  great  French  novelist,  was 
met  on  his  way  home  in  the  gray  dawn  by  a  fel- 
low-workman. "  Merciful  powers ! "  exclaimed  his 
companion  when  he  looked  him  in  the  face,  "  what 
terrible  disaster  has  befallen  you  ?  "  "  None ! "  said 
his  companion  grimly ;  "  none.  I  have  been  spend- 
ing a  night  with  a  manuscript  of  Balzac."  After 
somewhat  the  same  fashion,  both  the  friends  and 
the  foes  of  science,  after  spending  their  nights 
with  more  than  one  illegible  manuscript  of  natm'e, 
return  to  us  so  worn  and  irritated  by  the  strife, 
that  we  cannot  conceive  what  all  the  toil  and  con- 

ii8 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

troversy  can  be  good  for.  It  might  be  worth  while 
to  remember,  however,  that,  in  the  intellectual  as 
in  .the  physical  life,  exercise  and  effort  may  some- 
times be  good,  if  only  for  their  own  sake.  The 
brain  works  best  when  the  circulation  has  been 
quickened,  and  in  the  interests  of  a  torpid  liver  it 
may  now  and  then  be  worth  while  to  saw  half  a 
cord  of  wood,  even  though  when  the  job  is  done 
there  is  nobody  else  to  be  warmed  by  it. 

But  in  an  age  which  plumes  itself  upon  being 
practical,  it  is  perhaps  better  simply  to  recall 
some  of  those  services  of  science  to  our  modern 
life  which  have  been  in  the  direction  of  obvious 
utility,  healthfulness,  comfort,  and  progress;  and 
to  this  end  nothing  is  more  instructive  than  the 
contrast  between  modern  life  and  life  in  other 
and  earlier  times.  Let  me  be  understood  here  as 
using  the  term  "modern"  in  its  most  narrow  and 
restricted  sense.  Indeed,  it  would  not  be  neces- 
sary to  go  back  half  a  century  in  order  to  discover 
how  enormous  has  been  the  influence  of  science, 
its  wonderful  discoveries,  and  its  scarcely  less  won- 
derful applications  of  these  discoveries,  upon  the 
character  and  the  happiness  of  our  modern  life. 
If,  in  addition  to  this,  we  should  choose  to  go  back 
a  hundred  or  two  years  fm'ther,  the  contrast  be- 
comes so  immense  as  to  be  almost  incredible.  In 
a  clever  sketch  which  appeared  a  few  years  ago  in 
one  of  our  American  periodicals,  a  good-natured 
satu'e  holds  up  for  the  public  amusement  our  pres- 
ent craze  for  the  inconvenient  and  the  antique. 
A  youth  who  is  called  upon  to  be  from  time  to 

119 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

time  the  guest  of  a  childless  and  widowed  aunt  is 
a  good  deal  surprised,  on  arriving  at  her  comfort- 
able mansion  for  his  Christmas  holidays,  to  find 
that  his  aged  relative  has  taken  up  her  carpets  and 
taken  down  her  pictures ;  that  the  doors  have  been 
wi'ested  from  their  hinges  and  the  ample  panes  of 
plate-glass  from  the  windows;  that  the  walls  are 
adorned  with  old  and  hideous  delf  plates,  which 
to  the  nephew's  uncultivated  eye  seem  worthy  only 
of  a  place  in  the  scullery ;  that  the  f m'nace  fire  has 
been  put  out  in  the  cellar  and  the  gas  cut  off  in 
the  street.  His  aunt  has  had  a  bad  cold  in  the 
head,  and  he  gives  himself  a  headache  and  sore 
eyes  by  striving  to  read  the  evening  paper  with 
one  candle;  but  he  is  admonished  that  he  is  assist- 
ing at  a  reform  in  the  interests  of  high  art,  and 
he  consoles  himself  with  this  reflection  as  best  he 
may.  A  year  passes  before  he  returns  to  repeat 
this  experience,  and  then,  to  his  dismay,  he  finds 
it  much  more  severe.  His  own  quarters  have  not 
hitherto  been  invaded.  But  on  entering  his  bed- 
room, he  discovers  that  its  cozy  and  well-cush- 
ioned furniture  has  disappeared  completely.  A 
huge  and  clumsy  carved  chest  does  duty  for  the 
handsome  dressing-bureau,  a  segment  of  badly 
polished  steel  has  been  substituted  for  the  cheval- 
glass,  the  ample  and  inviting  arm-chairs  have  van- 
ished, to  be  replaced  by  sundry  rather  rickety 
three-legged  stools;  the  Croton  has  been  remorse- 
lessly cut  off  and  the  stationary  wash-stand  torn 
out,  while  in  its  place  there  appears  a  dismal  tri- 
pod which  instantly  suggests  that  most  unpleasant 

1 20 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

appendage  to  a  dentist's  chair,  holding  not  a  basin, 
but  a  beggarly  bowl,  strikingly  antique  in  form 
and  equally  impossible  to  use. 

Yet  another  year  passes,  and  the  nephew  re- 
turns again.  As  before,  he  arrives  in  the  even- 
ing. Blundering  over  an  oaken  settle  in  the  hall, 
which  barks  his  knees  and  entraps  him  into  tread- 
ing on  a  huge  hound  that  promptly  fastens  his 
teeth  in  the  calf  of  his  leg,  he  finds  himself  at 
length  in  the  presence  of  his  eccentric  relative. 
The  candles  have  vanished,  and  in  their  stead  the 
walls  are  hung  with  iron  sockets  into  which  are 
thrust  pine-knots  for  torches.  The  smoke  is  blind- 
ing, and  the  ah'  is  equally  frigid  and  foul ;  but  the 
youth  manages,  in  spite  of  it,  to  discern  his  aunt 
seated  in  the  middle  of  the  room  upon  a  pile  of 
skins.  The  carpets  are  gone,  and  the  rugs  have 
followed  them.  The  chandelier  has  disappeared, 
and  the  candelabra  have  been  retired  once  more 
to  their  ancient  repose  in  the  garret.  On  the 
smoked  and  dismantled  walls,  here  and  there, 
there  hangs  a  weapon  or  a  drinking-horn,  no  one 
of  which  would  the  estimable  lady  in  the  utmost 
extremity  have  known  how  to  use;  and  over  all 
these  broods  an  odor  emanating  from  some  ancient 
hangings  which  have  come  down,  the  youth  learns, 
from  "William  the  Conqueror,  and  which,  from 
their  vigorous  perfume,  must  have  been  used  al- 
ternately as  horse-blanket  and  table-cloth  by  all 
his  long  line  of  descendants. 

The  climax  which  cures  this  mania  does  not  con- 
cern us  this  evening ;  but  the  moral  of  such  a  story 

121 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

is  not  far  to  seek.  Could  we  restore,  as  under  the 
glamoui*  of  some  transient  fashion  we  are  tempted 
to,  those  old  forms  and  usages  and  suiToundings 
which  belonged  to  the  life  of  our  ancestors,  we 
should  speedily  discover  not  merely  of  how  much 
comfort,  but  of  how  much  breadth  and  movement 
and  fullness,  we  had  robbed  om-  lives.  The  things 
of  which  already  some  of  us  have  grown  so  weary 
that  we  would  fain  discard  them  altogether  have 
changed  the  whole  face  of  modern  society  and 
made  existence  another  thing.  Take  the  inven- 
tions and  discoveries  of  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years 
(as  I  said  a  moment  ago,  we  need  not  go  farther 
back),  and  consider  what  they  have  been.  Fifty 
years  ago  we  had  no  telegraph,  no  ocean  steam- 
ships, no  street  railways  (no  dream  even  of  their 
more  elevated  rivals),  no  aniUne  colors,  no  kero- 
sene oil,  no  steam  fire-engines,  no  painless  surgi- 
cal operations,  no  guncotton,  no  aluminium,  no 
magnesium,  no  electroplating,  no  spectroscope, 
no  positive  knowledge  of  the  stellar  worlds,  no 
submarine  cable,  no  telephone,  no  electric  light 
These  are  some  of  the  things  that  have  been  added 
to  our  resources  during  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years. 
If  I  were  an  expert  instead  of  a  neophyte  in  sci- 
ence, how  almost  indefinitely  I  might  add  to  the 
list! 

Meantime,  there  is  something  which  even  the 
most  unscientific  observer  can  do,  and  that  I  may 
attempt  for  a  few  moments  now.  In  speaking  of 
the  relations  of  science  to  our  modern  life,  it  is  at 
least  easy  to  indicate  how  large  is  oui'  indebted- 

122 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

ness  to  science  in  the  matter  of  travel,  of  art,  and 
of  health.  Let  us  look  at  modern  science  briefly 
in  this  threefold  relation. 

Some  one  has  called  a  ship  the  "noblest  master- 
piece of  human  genius,  the  most  expressive 
type  of  man  as  the  conqueror  and  lord  of  na- 
ture."^ But  the  ship  which  such  a  wi'iter  had  in 
mind  was  such  a  ship  as  that  in  which  Nelson 
fought,  or  on  whose  deck  our  own  Peny  and  Far- 
ragut  won  their  early  laurels.  Indeed,  we  call  the 
galleys  in  which  the  soldiers  of  the  Roman  empu-e 
crossed  the  Mediterranean,  ships;  and  still  more, 
the  vessels  that  brought  Columbus  to  the  West 
Indies,  and  the  Pilgrims  of  the  Mayfloiver  to  Ply- 
mouth Rock.  But  what  pygmies  and  cock-boats 
were  all  these  craft  —  aye,  even  the  swift-winged 
merchantmen  which  forty  years  ago  carried  the 
commerce  of  England  and  America — compared 
with  what  we  know  to-day  as  an  ocean  steamer ! 
Once  he  would  have  been  laughed  at  who  built  a 
ship  of  iron ;  to-day  science  has  taught  us  how  to 
build  not  only  the  hulls,  but  the  masts  and  rigging 
of  ships  of  iron.  Once  he  who  dared  to  prophesy 
that  the  time  would  come  when  a  vessel  could  be 
driven  clear  across  the  Atlantic  by  some  artificial 
force,  in  the  teeth  of  adverse  winds  and  currents, 
would  have  been  promptly  dismissed  to  a  lunatic 
asylum.  Not  long  ago  the  proposal  to  reduce  the 
journey  from  our  own  shores  to  those  of  G-reat 
Britain  to  a  period  of  fifteen  days  was  greeted  with 
shouts  of  ridicule.    To-day  even  the  most  cautious 

1  Dr.  A.  p.  Peabody,  "Christianity  and  Nature,"  p.  117. 
123 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

and  conservative  of  steam-navigators  is  making 
it  in  little  more  than  seven.  All  this  is  apparent 
before  we  have  boarded  one  of  these  floating 
monsters. 

What  a  spectacle  is  that  which  salutes  us  when 
we  stand  upon  its  deck,  or  climb  down  into  its 
hold!  Ascend  to  the  bridge  while  the  pilot  gets 
his  ship  under  way,  and  strive  to  take  in  the  vast- 
ness  and  perfection  of  this  marvelous  construction. 
Go  below  into  the  engine-room  and  watch  that 
perfect  mechanism,  huge  and  massive  like  the 
columns  and  arches  of  some  ancient  temple,  and 
yet  working,  when  once  the  motive  power  has 
been  applied  to  it,  almost  with  the  smoothness  and 
precision  of  a  watch.  Descend  yet  further  into  the 
bowels  of  this  leviathan  of  the  deep,  and  if  you 
have  the  nerve  to  do  it,  run  the  gantlet  of  the 
roaring  fires  that  heat  the  mighty  boilers.  Con- 
sider what  tremendous  forces  are  generated  and 
garnered  here,  and  then  ascend  to  the  deck  again 
and  observe  with  what  instantaneous  obedience 
and  absolute  docility  they  are  made  to  do  the 
work.  The  commander  lifts  his  hand,  and  straight- 
way the  huge  mechanism  begins  to  throb,  and  the 
ship  has  set  out  uj)on  her  voyage.  Yonder,  in  the 
pilot-house,  steam  has  displaced  the  half-dozen  or 
dozen  men  who  in  rough  weather  were  wont  to 
struggle  with  the  wheel,  and  the  touch  of  a  single 
hand  turns  the  helm  hither  and  thither  at  its  will, 
and  guides  the  vessel  with  sure  and  unerring  pre- 
cision. In  all  this  there  is  an  ingenuity  of  con- 
trivance, an  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end,  which 

124 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

so  interests  us  that  we  do  not  always  look  beyond. 
But  a  little  reflection  would  teach  us  that  no  in- 
genuity of  contrivance  can  be  gi'eatly  efficacious 
unless  there  be  the  application  of  some  scientific 
law  behind  it.  Has  it  ever  occurred  to  us,  now, 
that  it  is  the  study  of  these  scientific  laws  and 
theii'  mastery,  and  then  their  application  to  prac- 
tical results,  and  not  capital  or  enterprise  or  gov- 
ernment subsidies,  which  have  built  our  (well,  I 
believe  it  is  n't  ours,  but  let  us  make  believe  for 
the  sake  of  the  argument)  splendid  steam  marine 
and  made  the  modern  steamship  the  marvel  of 
the  world?  We  talk  of  the  power  of  capital,  but  in 
the  highest  view,  money  is  the  most  impotent  and 
unproductive  thing  in  the  world.  It  is  mind  that 
creates  machinery,  just  as  it  is  alone  the  power  of 
ideas  that  can  create  an  institution;  and  when  we 
see  an  ocean  steamer,  if  we  would  account  for  its 
existence,  we  must  go  back  to  that  first  germ  of  its 
triumphant  growth,  that  initial  protoplasm  of  the 
whole  mechanical  and  marine  evolution,  which 
challenged  the  boyish  curiosity  of  James  Watt. 
Between  that  initial  perception  of  the  power  of 
steam  and  a  modern  steamship,  what  an  almost 
infinite  distance!  What  has  bridged  it  but  the 
toil  and  patience  and  almost  supernatural  insight 
of  scientific  study?  Wliat  difficulties  have  barred 
the  way,  and  with  what  indomitable  perseverance 
science  has  overcome  them!  Do  we  remember 
that  there  is  no  smallest  contrivance,  no  slightest 
adjustment  of  compensating  forces  or  movements, 
valves    or    pistons,   no   cylinder   or  governor  or 

125 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

cut-off,  nor  any  least  accessory,  that  has  not  been 
thought  out  and  wrought  out  in  the  brain,  with 
endless  mathematical  calculations,  and  carefuUest 
weighing  and  measurement  of  the  application  of 
force,  the  laws  of  resistance,  and  the  like  I  Do  we 
realize  that  not  merely  in  the  matter  of  its  machi- 
nery, but  in  every  step  of  a  ship's  construction, 
from  keel  to  topgallant  mast,  the  one  indispensable 
requisite  that  must  preside  over  the  whole  pro- 
cedure is  an  adequate  and  accurate  scientific 
knowledge  ? 

Nay,  more :  do  we  realize  that  in  this  respect  the 
steamship  is  merely  the  type  and  image  of  eveiy 
other  conspicuous  agency  in  the  matter  of  hu- 
man locomotion  I  The  gi-ading  and  engineering  of 
routes  of  travel,  the  construction  of  railways  and 
bridges,  the  safety  and  efficiency  of  the  engines 
that  draw  us  and  the  carriages  in  which  we  ride, 
the  system  of  signals  that  lines  our  path,  and  that 
makes  a  modern  railway  journey  an  experience  of 
unintermitted  espionage  by  sentinels  who  cannot 
go  to  sleep,  the  telegi'aphic  flash  that  signals  our 
departure  and  anticipates  our  arrival — do  we  re- 
member, I  say,  that  for  all  this  we  are  indebted 
not,  as  we  so  often  think,  merely  to  a  clever  in- 
genuity, but  to  a  thorough  and  scientific  know- 
ledge which  has  made  that  ingenuity  possible,  and 
so  has  furnished  the  capital  with  which  it  has 
achieved  its  wonders  ? 

The  modern  traveler,  threading  the  hiUs  and  val- 
leys of  Palestine,  finds  traces  of  the  half-disin- 
terred aqueducts  which  it  is  supposed  were  built 

126 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modem  Life 

by  Solomon  himself.  The  foreigner,  riding  over  the 
lovely  plains  of  the  Campagna  in  the  early  spring- 
time, sees  the  still  imposing  ruins  of  those  old 
Roman  roads  builded  long  ago  by  the  emperors. 
And  in  such  things  one  finds  the  clue  to  what  did 
so  much  to  make  the  Hebrew  Empire  and  the  Ro- 
man Empire,  each  of  them,  great  in  their  time. 
But  what  were  all  these  victories  over  natui-e  — 
these  ancient  highways  that  once  bound  together 
the  elder  East  and  the  elder  West — compared  with 
those  wonderful  achievements  of  civil  engineering 
which  have,  in  our  own  age,  bridged  the  ocean  and 
scaled  the  Alps,  and  belted  this  mighty  continent 
from  sea  to  sea  with  its  endless  iron  girdle?  As 
one  climbs  the  steeps  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
thunders  on  through  the  narrow  and  yawning 
canons  that  lead  him  to  the  Pacific,  —  as  he  sees 
no  obstacle  which  is  not  tunneled  or  surmounted 
or  circumvented, — as  he  sees  no  unforeseen  prob- 
lem which  is  not  somehow  grappled  with  and 
solved,  —  as  he  sees,  in  one  word,  the  whole  round 
world,  by  means  of  the  marvelous  triumphs  of 
modern  engineering  and  the  marvelous  agencies 
of  modern  travel,  made  neighbor  to  New  York,  — 
as  all  this  stands  forth  at  once  to  confront  and 
convince  him,  one  may  at  least  partially  realize 
bow  enormous  is  the  indebtedness  of  our  modern 
life  to  modern  science. 

But,  again :  that  which  transforms  this  modern 
world  of  ours,  and  more  than  anything  else  smooths 
away  its  roughnesses,  dispels  its  monotony,  and 
charms  equally  the  imagination  and  the  taste,  is 

127 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

Art.  Do  we  realize,  however,  as  adequately  as  we 
ought,  the  indebtedness  of  Art  to  Science?  You 
cannot  rear  a  palace  or  a  cathedral,  any  more  than 
you  can  build  a  bridge,  without  a  constant  appeal 
to  the  principles  of  science.  No  more  could  you 
compose  a  song  or  a  symphony.    In  a  word. 

All  art  is  mathematical.  Music  equally  with  aritlmie- 
tic  is  a  science  of  numbers;  Pythagoras  and  Orpheus 
were  equally  identified  with  its  early  development,  and  it 
was  better  understood  by  Newton,  La  Grange,  and  Euler, 
than  by  Mozart  or  Beethoven  or  Rossini.  The  problem 
of  the  flute-note  is  discussed  in  the  "  Principia  "  with  the 
harmony  of  the  spheres.  The  relative  magnitude  of  the 
pipes  of  the  organ,  the  length  of  their  respective  vibra- 
tions, and  the  quahty  of  the  resulting  tones,  form  a  series 
of  numerical  proportions  no  less  definite  and  uniform 
than  those  which  govern  the  planetary  orbits;  and  the 
reason  why  the  reed-pipes  in  an  organ  are  oftener  out  of 
tune  than  the  others  is  that  they  involve  complex  prob- 
lems which  stni  lack  a  complete  solution,  so  that  the 
rules  for  their  construction  are  but  empirical.  Musical 
intervals  are  rightly  designated  by  numerical  names, 
and  might  as  well  be  represented  on  the  score  by  num- 
bers as  by  notes.  Colors  have  their  mathematical  as  well 
as  their  chemical  laws,  and  as  they  are  separated  in  the 
prism  or  combined  in  art,  they  indicate  relations  which 
can  only  be  expressed  by  abstract  formulae.  Painting 
has  no  merit  unless  the  drawing  be  true,  and  all  true 
drawing  corresponds  to  one  or  another  mode  of  mathe- 
matical projection.  ^ 

The  practical  rules  of  even  the  inferior  arts — the 
rules  recognized  by  the  laborer  who  knows  not  the 

1  Peabody,  "Christianity  the  Religion  of  Nature,"  pp.  131, 132. 

128 


The  Relations  oj  Science  to  Modern  Life 

multiplication-table — are  derived  from  certain  ele- 
mentary but  indispensable  scientific  laws.  Were 
it  not  that  science  has  defined  and  demonstrated 
those  laws,  we  should  still  be  at  the  same  low  point 
of  civilization  with  our  Mohawk  and  Onondaga 
predecessors. 

But  let  us  look  at  the  subject  from  quite  a  dif- 
ferent point  of  view.  A  youth  beside  me  in  the 
omnibus  the  other  day  drew  from  his  pocket  a 
well-worn  envelope,  and  furtively  extracted  from 
that  in  turn  a  photograph.  Straightway,  as  a  sur- 
reptitious glance  over  his  shoulder  revealed  to  me, 
a  fair  young  creature  beamed  upon  him,  and  the 
fact  that  he  was  being  jolted  down  town  to  deliver 
a  parcel  of  samples  faded  utterly  from  his  young 
mind.  For  the  moment  the  omnibus  became  the 
boudoir  of  beauty  (I  believe  that  is  the  correct 
phrase),  and  the  youthful  trafficker  was  nerved 
anew  for  the  tedious  monotonies  of  trade  by  the 
halcyon  visions  of  "love's  young  dream."  But  fifty 
years  ago  such  solace  and  inspiration  would  have 
been  to  such  a  one  impossible.  A  painted  minia- 
ture upon  porcelain  or  ivory  would  have  con- 
sumed a  year's  salary,  and  would  then  have  left 
the  youthful  spendthrift  bankrupt.  What  an  em- 
blem thus  that  tiny  photograph  becomes  of  the 
services  of  science  —  to  art,  do  I  say?  —  nay,  to 
sentiment,  to  poetry,  to  imagination,  to  the  affec- 
tions ! 

For  the  "  artist,"  as  he  is  wont  to  style  himself, 
who  took  the  photograph  is  merely  a  mechanical 
workman  who  has  made  use  of  certain  scientific 
9  129 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

discoveries  in  optics  and  chemistry.  That  he  can 
take  a  photograph  at  all  is  owing  to  that  initial 
experiment  long  ago  of  Priestley's,  when,  with  a 
glass  bottle,  some  chloride  of  silver,  and  a  piece  of 
dark  paper  out  of  which  some  letters  had  been  cut 
with  a  penknife,  he  produced  what  was  probably 
the  first  specimen  of  sun-printing.  And  it  is  be- 
cause the  studies  and  discoveries  of  Scheele  the 
Swedish  chemist,  of  Wedgwood,  of  Sir  Humphry 
Davy  and  of  our  own  Draper,  of  Daguerre  and 
Talbot,  have  enlarged  and  widened  the  sphere  of 
knowledge  in  this  direction,  that  the  art  of  photog- 
raphy to-day  exists.  It  would  be  at  once  idle  and 
vain  to  attempt  to  indicate  what  it  has  done  for 
modern  life.  Such  achievements  are  beyond  com- 
putation. In  its  services  and  contributions  to  kin- 
dred arts,  to  the  popularization  of  knowledge,  to 
the  cheapening  and  multiplication  of  forms  of 
beauty  and  grandeur,  to  the  comfort  of  the  sorrow- 
ing and  separated,  to  the  accurate  and  truthful 
writing  of  history,  to  the  progress  of  nearly  all  the 
sciences,  to  the  cause  of  justice  and  philanthropy, 
its  usefulness  and  influence  have  been  simply  in- 
calculable. 

Behind  the  question  of  a  higher  and  wider 
culture,  however,  there  is  another  and  primary  in- 
terest which  relates  to  the  \igor  and  well-being 
of  the  faculties  which  we  cultivate.  At  the  basis  of 
all  human  happiness  and  human  usefulness  is  the 
question  of  health.  Mens  sana  in  corpore  sano  is  a 
principle  which  we  cannot  ignore  or  disregard.  It 
is  true  that  Mr.  Grreg,  in  his  "Enigmas  of  Life," 

130 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

has  undertaken  to  show  that  "bodily  pain  and 
disease  are  not  only  compatible  with,  but  may  di- 
rectly contribute  to,  the  loftiest  efforts  of  the  intel- 
lect." According  to  Mr.  Greg,  "  The  effect  of  some 
disorders  and  of  certain  sorts  of  pain  upon  the 
nerves  tends  to  produce  a  cerebral  excitation ;  and 
the  stimulus  thus  communicated  to  the  material 
organ  of  thought  renders  it  for  the  time  capable  of 
unusual  effort.  Men  under  the  stirring  influences 
of  pain  are  quickened,"  he  argues,  "to  flights  of 
imagination  and  feats  of  reasoning  whose  excep- 
tional splendor  astonishes  themselves  and  all  who 
have  known  them  only  in  ordinary  moods  of  com- 
fort. Extinct  faculties,"  he  insists,  "come  back 
to  them.  Torpid  faculties  become  vigorous  and 
sparkling,  forgotten  knowledge  is  recovered.  Mar- 
velous gleams  of  insight  are  vouchsafed  to  them." 
And  all  this  because  a  man  has  an  affection  of  the 
spine,  or  an  acute  attack  of  inflammatory  rheuma- 
tism! 

It  may  be  so,  but  even  Mr.  Greg  would  not  main- 
tain, I  presume,  that  disease  and  constitutional  ill- 
health  contribute,  on  the  whole,  to  the  efficiency 
any  more  than  to  the  happiness  of  the  race.  One 
whose  calling  it  is  to  work  in  this  world  (and,  hap- 
pily, it  is  the  calling  of  most  of  us!)  wants  his 
powers  to  be  in  such  a  condition  that  he  can  work 
to  the  best  advantage;  and  scarcely  less  does  he 
need  that  his  surroundings  shall  be  such  as  shall 
contribute  most  effectually  to  nourish,  to  conserve, 
and  to  recuperate  those  powers.  Do  we  realize 
how  largely  modern  science  has  contributed  to  this 

'3' 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

end  ?  There  is  a  cheap  ridicule  that  scoffs  at  sani- 
tary science,  and  that  exults  in  the  problems  which 
as  yet  it  has  not  wholly  solved.  Who  ever  claimed 
that  it  had  exhausted  the  whole  domain  of  hygienic 
knowledge,  or  that  its  disciples  were  any  less  liable 
than  other  students  (except  students  of  theology !) 
to  lose  their  way  sometimes!  But  there  are  cer- 
tain facts  and  figures  in  regard  to  our  modern  life 
which  stare  us  in  the  face.  One  is  that  through 
the  discoveries  of  medical  science  the  average 
death-rate  in  certain  zymotic  diseases  has  been  de- 
creased nearly  fifty  per  cent.  Another  is  that  the 
average  length  of  human  life  has  been  increased 
from  thirty-three  years  to  considerably  over  forty 
years.  Our  great  life  insurance  companies,  whose 
profits  have  been  so  enormous,  owe  their  splendid 
success  to  the  fact  that  they  have  based  their  cal- 
culations upon  an  average  death-rate  commonly 
accepted  in  England  fifty  or  seventy-five  years 
ago.  But  people  live  longer  than  they  did  fifty  or 
seventy-five  years  ago,  and  they  are  better  pre- 
served and  in  every  way  more  vigorous  while  they 
live.  Fewer  infants  die,  and  in  the  struggle  from 
infancy  to  maturity  the  risks  in  every  walk  of  life 
have  been  vastly  decreased.  And  why!  Simply 
because  science  has  illuminated  the  whole  domain 
of  life.  It  has  taught  us  how  to  build  and  venti- 
late, and  above  all  how  to  drain,  our  streets  and 
houses.  It  has  taught  us  how  to  nourish  our 
bodies  and  our  brains.  It  has  taught  us  how  to 
take  care  of  our  eyes  and  lungs  and  every  other 
most  vital  and  sensitive  organ.     It  has  done  far 

132 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

more  than  art  or  philanthropy,  or  even  religion,  to 
make  the  home  of  the  poor  man  and  of  the  rich 
man  alike  purer  and  safer  and  healthier.  It  is  not 
a  gi'eat  while  since  the  prevalence  of  consumption 
in  certain  parts  of  our  country  was  simply  fright- 
ful. It  is  stiU  a  terrible  and  most  destructive 
scourge.  But  science  has  taught  us  that  not  only 
this,  but  other  kindred  diseases  are  almost  invari- 
ably found  in  connection  with  imperfectly  venti- 
lated and  overcrowded  schools  and  dwellings, —  in 
a  word,  that  bad  health  means,  in  such  cases  at 
any  rate,  bad  air.  It  has  gone  so  far  as  to  show 
just  how  the  centers  of  life  may  be  poisoned  by 
such  influences  alike  in  man  and  in  the  lower  or- 
ders. And  over  against  these  perils  to  every-day 
life  it  has  set  its  cautionary  signals  with  equal  skill 
and  efficacy.  In  fact,  what  step  is  that  which  we 
may  safely  take  without  first  invoking  the  guid- 
ance and  protection  of  science  ?  It  is  not  a  gi-eat 
while  since  we  who  live  in  cities  were  notified  that 
our  foremost  domestic  necessity  was  to  prove  the 
agent  for  our  wholesale  destruction.  Croton,  con- 
ducted as  it  was  to  our  kitchens  and  pantries,  was 
to  be  the  death  of  us.  Lead  is  a  poison.  "Water 
conducted  through  lead  pipes  takes  up  the  poison 
in  the  pipes  and  conveys  it  to  our  tea-pot,  and  thus 
we  were  all  doomed.  But  at  this  point  science  in- 
terposed to  remind  us  that  while  water  oxidizes 
lead,  and  so  produces  oxide  of  lead,  which  is  both 
a  soluble  and  poisonous  compound,  there  is  a 
still  further  action  which  takes  place,  by  means  of 
which  this   oxide    combines  with    carbonic    acid 

9*  133 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

(which  is  usually  contained  or  held  in  solution  in 
most  waters),  forming  thus  a  salt.  This  salt  is  the 
carbonate  of  lead,  and  is  insoluble.  And  the  inside 
of  our  water-pipes  usually  becomes  coated  with  a 
hard,  insoluble  substance,  which,  unless  there  are 
other  disturbing  agencies  which  come  in  and  inter- 
fere, makes  a  lead  pipe  almost  safer  and  better 
than  others.  But  of  all  this  we  only  dare  to  be 
assured  when  science  has  turned  its  illuminating 
lamp  upon  the  whole  subject,  and  at  once  solved 
our  perplexities  and  silenced  om*  fears.  In  our 
ignorance,  we  seem  to  have  no  other  alternative 
save  f atahsm  or  superstition  unless  we  turn  to  it ; 
and  if  we  were  without  its  guidance  we  should 
speedily  find  ourselves  paralyzed  and  helpless. 

You  will  easily  perceive,  from  these  familiar  il- 
lustrations, how  much  fm'ther  I  might  proceed  in 
the  same  direction.  But  in  speaking  of  the  rela- 
tions of  science  to  modern  life,  I  am  reminded  that 
there  is  one  other  service  which  science  has  ren- 
dered to  our  age,  which  is,  perhaps,  really  gi-eater 
than  all  the  rest.  In  his  address  at  the  farewell 
banquet  given  to  him  in  this  city,  Mr.  Tyndall 
used  the  following  words : 

They  who  are  drawn  to  science  as  a  vocation  must,  I 
venture  to  think,  be  prepared  at  times  to  suffer  a  httle 
for  the  sake  of  scientific  righteousness,  not  refusing, 
should  occasion  demand  it,  to  hve  low  and  he  hard  to 
achieve  the  object  of  their  hves.  I  do  not  urge  upon 
others  that  which  I  should  have  been  unwiUing  to  do 
myself.  Let  me  give  you  a  fragment  of  personal  history. 
In  1848,  wishing  to  improve  myself  in  science,  I  went  to 

134 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modem  Life 

the  University  of  Marburg — the  same  old  town  in  whicli 
my  great  namesake  William  Tyndale,  when  even  poorer 
than  myself,  published  his  translation  of  the  Bible.  I 
lodged  in  the  plainest  manner,  in  a  street  which,  perhaps, 
bore  an  appropriate  name  while  I  dwelt  upon  it.  It  was 
called  the  Ketzerbach — the  heretic's  brook — from  a  little 
historic  rivulet  running  through  it.  I  wished  to  keep 
myself  clean  and  hardy  in  an  economical  way,  so  I  pur- 
chased a  cask  and  had  it  cut  in  two  by  a  carpenter. 
Half  that  cask,  filled  with  spring  water  over  night,  was 
placed  in  my  small  bedroom;  and  never  during  the  years 
that  I  spent  there,  in  winter  or  in  summer,  did  the  clock 
of  the  beautiful  Elizabethkirche,  which  was  close  at  hand, 
finish  striking  the  hour  of  six  in  the  morning  before 
I  was  in  my  tub.  For  a  good  portion  of  the  time  I  rose 
an  hour  and  a  half  earlier  than  this  {i.  e.,  4:30  a.  m.), 
working  by  lamp-light  at  the  differential  calculus,  while 
the  world  was  slumbering  around  me.  And  I  risked 
this  breach  in  my  pursuits,  and  this  expenditure  of  time 
and  money,  not  because  I  had  any  material  profit  in 
view,  but  because  I  thought  the  cultivation  of  the  in- 
tellect worth  such  a  sacrifice.  There  was  another  motive 
also  —  the  sense  of  duty.  There  are  sure  to  be  hours  in 
the  life  of  every  young  man  when  his  outlook  will  be 
dark,  his  work  difficult,  and  his  intellectual  futm'c  uncer- 
tain. Over  such  periods,  when  the  stimulus  of  success 
is  absent,  he  must  be  can-ied  by  his  sense  of  duty.  It 
may  not  be  so  quick  an  incentive  as  glory,  but  it  is  a 
nobler  one,  and  gives  a  tone  to  character  which  glory 
cannot  impart.  That  unflinching  devotion  to  work,  with- 
out which  no  real  eminence  in  science  is  attainable,  im- 
plies the  stern  resolve,  "  I  work  not  because  I  always  like 
to  work,  but  because  I  ought  to  work."  In  science,  how- 
ever, love  and  duty  are  sure  to  become  identical  in  the 
end. 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

It  is  that  noble  illustration  of  these  words  of 
Mr.  Tyndall's  which  scientific  men  in  our  own  day 
and  land  have  given  us,  which  is,  perhaps,  the 
grandest  service  that  they  have  rendered  to  our 
time.  In  an  age  absorbed  in  pursuits  and  enter- 
prises chiefly  because  they  pay,  we  have  had  the 
inspiring  example  of  men  of  rare  gifts  and  of 
indomitable  perseverance  who  have  consecrated 
themselves  to  science,  not  for  its  pecuniary  re- 
wards, but  for  the  love  of  truth  itself.  In  an  age 
whose  first  question  forever  is  not,  What  are  the 
larger  laws  and  inner  secrets  of  the  world  in  which 
we  live?  but  rather.  How  can  you  convert  your 
knowledge  or  your  discoveries  into  a  marketable 
commodity  ?  we  have  had  a  class  of  men  who, 
with  preeminent  modesty  and  often  exceptional 
self-denial,  have  devoted  a  lifetime  to  unwearying 
studies  and  unceasing  investigation.  While  we 
have  slept  all  over  the  land,  they  have  watched 
and  toiled,  and  often  starved  as  well.  "  They  have 
labored,  and  other  men  have  entered  into  their 
labors."  For  one  man  who  has  reaped  any  ade- 
quate pecuniary  reward  for  his  discoveries  and  in- 
ventions, there  have  been  hundreds  who  neither 
have  done  so  nor  have  sought  to ;  for  them  it  has 
been  reward  enough  to  pass  for  a  little  within  the 
veil  that  hides  the  mysteries  of  nature  and  of 
science,  and  then  to  return  again,  their  faces  shin- 
ing with  the  splendors  of  which  they  have  caught 
a  glimpse.  How  can  we  adequately  estimate  or 
honor  the  services  of  such  men !  In  a  selfish  gen- 
eration, they  have  taught  us  the  glory  of  unselfish- 

n6 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

ness.  In  a  sordid  and  self-indulgent  generation, 
they  have  been  the  heroes  of  a  new  crusade. 
Scattered  through  all  our  land,  in  institutions  of 
learning  scantily  endowed  and  meagerly  equipped, 
there  are  men  living  on  salaries  that  the  cook  of 
any  New  York  club  would  refuse  with  indignant 
contempt,  who,  if  they  had  brought  their  brains  to 
some  great  commercial  center,  and  put  them  to 
what  we  call,  with  our  narrow  vision,  some  "  prac- 
tical" use,  would  have  been  themselves  the  mer- 
chant princes  to  whom,  now,  they  must  sue  for 
patronage.  All  honor  to  these,  the  martyi's,  of- 
ten, of  a  neglect  and  indifference  as  cruel  as  it  is 
unintelligent.  They  have  given  to  life  a  new  mo- 
tive and  a  loftier  ideal.  They  have  given  to  om' 
waning  faith  in  human  nature  a  new  impulse  and 
a  new  spring ! 

And  what,  in  turn,  have  we  given  to  them  ?  In 
their  struggles  to  redeem  our  common  country 
from  that  discredit  to  which  de  Tocqueville  re- 
ferred when,  thirty  years  ago,  he  wrote,  "  It  must 
be  confessed  that,  among  the  civilized  peoples  of 
our  age,  there  are  few  in  which  the  highest  sci- 
ences have  made  so  little  progress  as  in  the  United 
States,"  ^  how  much  s}Tnpathy  have  men  of  science 
had  from  their  fellow-citizens?  I  do  not  forget 
the  instances  of  such  a  sympathy  which,  here  and 
there,  salute  us;  but,  as  a  rule,  is  it  not  true  that 
we  have  left  these  slaves  of  the  lamp  to  be,  too 
often,  the  victims  of  a  suspicious  or  indifferent 
neglect?    The  history  of  this  Academy  is,  I  fear, 

1  "  De  la  D6mocratie  en  Am6rique,"  etc.,  tome  ii,  p.  36. 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

hardly  a  history  of  ardent  and  effusive  cooperation 
on  the  part  of  the  citizens  of  New  York.  There 
has  been  no  such  eagerness  to  throng  its  pubhc 
meetings  or  to  pursue  its  members  with  insatiable 
enthusiasm  into  the  retirement  of  privacy  as  has 
made  the  lives  of  my  friends  President  Newberry 
and  his  associates  a  burden  to  themselves.  When 
the  professor  goes  botanizing  among  the  June 
flowers  on  the  banks  of  the  Bronx,  I  do  not  ob- 
serve that  he  is  followed  by  quite  the  same  throng 
of  ardent  men  and  women,  young  and  old  as  well, 
whom  one  meets  at  certain  periodical  intervals  on 
their  way  to  Jerome  Park. 

In  a  word,  how  much  of  the  homage  of  disciple- 
ship  has  science  won  in  our  day  and  in  this  com- 
munity ?  A  friend,  to  whose  courteous  but  persis- 
tent urgency  my  presence  here  to-night  is  owing, 
has  reminded  me  that  Lord  Derby  once  told  the 
Edinburgh  students  that  many  a  young  man  went 
to  the  bad  for  lack  of  finding  a  congenial  sphere  of 
intellectual  exertion.  Sir  Roderick  Mm*chison  was 
a  mere  fop,  a  cornet  of  the  Guards,  until  the  lady 
whom  he  married  saw  the  power  that  was  in  him, 
and  drew  him  to  that  department  of  study  where 
afterward  he  reigned  a  master.  There  are  young 
men  to-day  in  our  colleges,  or  not  long  out  of 
them,  who  have  found  in  a  department  of  scientific 
study  the  most  genuine  happiness,  and  in  the  pur- 
suit of  truth  for  its  own  sake  the  most  abundant 
rewards.  They  have  come  to  know  what  Fresnel 
meant  when  that  gifted  Frenchman  wrote  to  a 
friend:  "Without  doubt,  in  moments  of  disgust 

138 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

and  discouragement  I  have  sometimes  needed  the 
spm'  of  vanity  to  excite  me  to  pursue  my  re- 
searches. But  all  the  compliments  I  ever  received 
from  Arago,  De  la  Place,  and  Biot  never  gave  me 
so  much  pleasure  as  the  discovery  of  a  theoretic 
truth,  or  the  confirmation  of  a  calculation  by  ex- 
periment." Why  are  there  not  many  more  young 
men  who  can  say  sol  If  with  the  growth  of 
wealth  we  are  to  have  a  leism-e  class  among  us, 
may  not  some  of  these  wisely  and  worthily  conse- 
crate themselves  to  an  earnest  and  unselfish  dis- 
cipleship  to  science?  Are  there  not  worthier  in- 
terests than  a  pigeon  or  a  polo  match  on  which 
the  gilded  if  not  golden  youth  of  our  generation 
may  expend  their  energies  f  It  is  the  ambition  of 
our  age  to  make  life  rounder  and  broader  and 
fuller  than  the  life  of  our  forefathers.  We  smile 
at  their  narrowness  and  compassionate  their  igno- 
rance. But  what  are  we  doing  to  widen  the  hori- 
zon, not  of  our  amusements  and  luxuries,  but  of 
our  pm'suits,  and  to  make  the  life  of  to-day  not 
merely  more  comfortable,  but  more  intellectual? 
In  other  cities  —  and  by  that  word  I  do  not  mean 
merely  Boston  —  I  am  assured  that  bankers  and 
lawyers  may  be  met  who  find  their  recreation  in 
private  cabinets  of  natural  history,  and  in  personal 
studies  in  the  physical  sciences.  Is  it  not  worth 
while  to  consider  whether  a  more  genuine  satisfac- 
tion and  a  more  wholesome  enjojonent  or  recrea- 
tion may  not  be  found  in  this  direction  than  in 
the  sports  and  excitements  which  too  generally  en- 
gross us? 

U9 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modem  Life 

And  finally,  in  view  of  the  enormous  services  of 
scientific  investigation  wherever  it  has  been  pros- 
ecuted and  encouraged,  is  it  not  worth  while  for 
the  merchants  and  capitalists  of  New  York  to  in- 
quii*e  whether  they  may  not  wisely  give  to  science 
a  more  generous  assistance  and  a  more  substantial 
sympathy  than  they  have  yet  vouchsafed  to  it? 
Said  Mr.  Tyndall,  in  the  last  of  those  lectures  on 
Light  which  he  delivered  in  this  country  in  the 
winter  of  1872-73 : 

When  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  landed  at  Plymouth  Rock, 
and  when  Penn  made  his  treaty  with  the  Indians,  the 
newcomers  had  to  huild  their  houses,  to  chasten  the 
earth  into  cultivation,  and  to  take  care  of  other  and  more 
pressing  interests.  In  such  a  community,  science,  in  its 
more  abstract  forms,  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  And  at 
the  present  hour,  when  your  hardy  Western  pioneers 
stand  face  to  face  with  stubborn  Nature,  piercing  the 
mountains  and  subduing  the  forest  and  the  prahie,  the 
pursuit  of  science  for  its  own  sake  is  not  to  be  expected. 
The  fii'st  need  of  man  is  food  and  shelter;  but  a  vast 
portion  of  this  continent  is  already  raised  far  beyond 
this  need.  The  gentlemen  of  New  York,  Brooklyn,  Bal- 
timore, and  Washington  have  aheady  built  their  houses, 
and  very  beautiful  they  are;  they  have  also  secured 
their  dinners,  to  the  excellence  of  which  I  can  bear  tes- 
timony. They  have,  in  fact,  reached  that  precise  condi- 
tion of  well-being  and  independence  when  a  culture, 
as  high  as  humanity  has  yet  reached,  may  justly  be 
demanded  at  their  hands.  They  have  reached  that  ma- 
tm-ity,  as  possessors  of  wealth  and  leisure,  when  the  in- 
vestigator of  natural  truth,  for  the  truth's  own  sake, 
ought  to  find  among  them  promoters  and  protectors. 

140 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

Mr.  Tyndali's  words,  I  think  you  will  own,  are 
not  less  true  or  less  pertinent  to-day  than  when 
he  spoke  them  nearly  ten  years  ago.  We  have 
no  kings  in  America,  but  we  have  those  merchant 
princes  in  whose  power  it  is  to  do  for  science 
among  us  what  crowned  heads  have  done  in  other 
ages  and  in  other  lands.  It  was  Peter  the  Great 
who  showed  himself  well  named  in  founding  the 
Imperial  Academy  of  Sciences  at  St.  Petersburg. 
It  was  Frederick  the  Great  who  instituted  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Berlin,  with  Leib- 
nitz at  its  head,  thus  making  Berlin  the  intellectual 
focus  of  modern  scientific  thought.  The  most  en- 
during luster  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV,  and  the 
greatest  distinction  of  Richelieu,  is  that  under 
their  auspices  was  founded  the  French  Academy; 
and  one  of  our  own  scientific  teachers  suggests 
that  perhaps  the  only  good  thing  that  Charles  II 
ever  did  was  his  institution  of  the  Royal  Academy. 

Mr.  Tyndall  thinks  that  because  science  in 
America  lacks  this  imperial  patronage  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  original  research  can  ever  greatly 
flourish  among  us.  But  if  we  have  no  grand  mon- 
archs,  we  have  our  merchant  princes;  and  it  re- 
mains for  them  to  say  whether  one  of  the  noblest 
opportunities  for  princely  deeds  does  not  in  this 
direction  invite  them.  We  have  had  splendid 
benefactions  to  religion,  to  philanthropy,  to  let- 
ters, in  New  York.  We  have  hospitals,  and  li- 
braries, and  churches  upon  which  wealth  and 
thought  have  been  abundantly  lavished.  We 
have,  too,  here  and  there,  some  scanty  provision 

141 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

for  the  disciples  of  science.  But  too  often  our 
scientific  men  are  constrained  to  abandon  the  pur- 
suit of  scientific  investigation  for  its  own  sake,  for 
the  purpose  of  such  practical  applications  of  it  as 
shall  enable  them  to  live  at  all  and  others  to  live 
more  comfortably  and  luxuriously.  Undoubtedly 
we  want  the  applier  of  scientific  truth  even  as  we 
want  the  teacher  of  it ;  but  behind  and  above  them 
both  we  want  the  original  investigator,  unvexed 
by  sordid  cares  of  personal  maintenance,  whose  vo- 
cation it  is  to  pursue  his  inquiries  and  extend 
the  field  of  discovery  for  the  truth's  own  sake,  and 
without  reference  to  practical  ends. 

Shall  we  not  have  him,  and  shall  not  he,  in  turn, 
have  our  confidence  and  sympathy  and  support? 
Let  us  thoroughly  understand  that  every  highest 
interest  and  every  most  sacred  truth  has  nothing  to 
fear  and  everything  to  hope  from  scientific  investi- 
gation. The  history  of  theological  controversies 
with  men  of  science  would  lead  us  to  imagine  some- 
times that  modern  science  exists  only  to  pull  down 
and  destroy  the  ancient  tabernacles  of  rehgious 
faith.  But  the  closer  we  come,  not  to  the  guesses, 
but  to  the  facts  of  science,  the  more  clearly  we  per- 
ceive that  this  seeming  iconoclasm  is  only  a  new 
revelation  of  the  eternal  truth.  If  the  last  theory 
of  creation  be  true,  it  is  the  revelation  of  a  pre- 
arranging Intelligence  more  marvelous  and  more 
adorable  than  any  that  had  preceded  it.  And  thus 
the  language  of  the  poet,  as  he  sings  of  another 
progress  and  revolution,  becomes  no  less  true  in  the 
domain,  not  of  art,  but  of  science  and  religion: 

142 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

Young  Romance  raised  his  dreamy  eyes 
O'erhung  with  dainty  locks  of  gold ; 
"  Why  smite,"  he  asked  in  sad  surprise, 
"The  fair,  the  old?" 

Yet  louder  rang  the  strong  one's  stroke, 
Yet  nearer  flashed  his  axe's  gleam  ; 

Shuddering  and  sick  at  heart,  I  woke 
As  from  a  dream. 

I  looked :  aside  the  dust-cloud  rolled ; 

The  waster  seemed  the  builder  too : 
Upspringing  from  the  ruined  old 

I  saw  the  new. 

'T  was  but  the  ruin  of  the  bad, 
The  wasting  of  the  wrong  and  ill ; 

Whate'er  of  good  the  old  time  had 
Was  living  still. 

In  this  spirit  let  us  hail  and  help  forward  the 
efforts  of  science  to-day.  If  it  shall  attempt  to 
pervert  the  Book  of  Nature,  we  may  be  sure  that, 
sooner  or  later.  He  who  is  the  Author  of  that  book 
will  bring  its  endeavors  to  merited  confusion.  But 
if,  whether  in  a  spirit  more  or  less  consciously  de- 
vout, it  is  in  honest  and  fearless  and  resolute  pur- 
suit of  the  truth,  we  may  rejoice  in  its  enthusiasm, 
and  gladly  welcome  its  discoveries.  And  once 
more  I  ask  you.  Shall  we  do  no  more?  If  the 
men  of  science  represent  the  more  thoughtful  ele- 
ment in  the  community,  we  who  are  here  to-night 
represent  the  more  active  element.  And  in  this 
cause,  as  in  any  other,  these  two   classes  must 

143 


The  Relations  of  Science  to  Modern  Life 

move  forward  side  by  side  and  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der. When  they  do,  believe  me,  the  result  will  be 
alike  worthy  of  our  powers  and  our  opportunities. 
And  therefore  let  me  leave  the  subject  with  those 
stirring  words  of  Charles  Mackay's : 

Men  of  thought,  be  up  and  stirring, 

Night  and  day ; 
Sow  the  seed — withdraw  the  curtain — 

Clear  the  way ! 
Men  of  action,  aid  and  cheer  them 

As  ye  may ! 
There  's  a  fount  about  to  stream, 
There  's  a  hght  about  to  beam, 
There  's  a  warmth  about  to  glow. 
There  's  a  flower  about  to  blow  ; 
There  's  a  midnight  blackness  changing 

Into  graj^; 
Men  of  thought  and  men  of  action, 

Clear  the  way ! 

Once  the  welcome  hght  has  broken, 

Who  shall  say 
What  the  unimagined  glories 

Of  the  day  ? 
What  the  evil  that  shall  perish 

In  its  ray  ? 
Aid  the  dawning,  tongue  and  pen  j 
Aid  it,  hopes  of  honest  men ; 
Aid  it,  paper — aid  it,  type — 
Aid  it,  for  the  hour  is  ripe, 
And  our  earnest  must  not  slacken 

Into  play, — 
Men  of  thought  and  men  of  action, 

Clear  the  way ! 
144 


THE  RURAL  REINFORCEMENT 
OF  CITIES 

Published  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  March  i6,  1890 


10 


THE  RURAL  REINFORCEMENT 
OF  CITIES 


WHEN,  on  March  12,  1888,  the  memorable 
blizzard  bm*ied  New  York  in  snow,  it  was 
stated  that  there  was  hardly  food  enough  within 
the  limits  of  the  city  to  last  it  more  than  four  days. 
The  statement  probably  needs  some  qualification, 
but  substantially  it  was  doubtless  true.  There  is 
never  in  any  great  city,  unless  it  is  anticipating  a 
siege,  enough  in  the  way  of  food  supplies  to  last  it 
for  more  than  a  week ;  and  a  large  part  of  the  activi- 
ties of  thousands  of  people  are  taken  up  with  this 
very  business.  The  "  Tribune  "  has  been  discuss- 
ing lately  the  "  milk  question,"  and  has  gathered  a 
mass  of  most  interesting  and  impressive  informa- 
tion as  to  the  relation  of  that  traffic  to  the  life  of 
a  great  city,  and  to  the  adequate  remuneration  of 
those  who  are  engaged  in  it.  One  could  not  help 
thinking,  as  he  read  it,  how  promptly  the  question 
of  a  "  paying  price "  for  milk  would  be  settled  if 
only  the  farmers  could  agree  upon  an  efficient  and 
thorough  "  combine."    For  we  can  get  along  with- 

M7 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

out  some  things,  but  we  cannot  get  along  without 
milk.  New  York  would  make  short  work  of  the 
"middlemen"  if  it  found  that  they  stood  in  the 
way  of  the  baby's  breakfast.  But,  after  all,  milk 
is  only  one  of  the  things  on  which  a  great  city 
depends  for  its  life,  and  which  it  must  needs  re- 
ceive largely  from  without.  Blood  and  brawn  and 
brains — it  consumes  these,  too,  faster  than,  in  ade- 
quate quality  at  any  rate,  it  produces  them.  On 
public  occasions  in  New  York  such  as  any  one  of 
two  or  three  of  which  the  celebration  of  the  cen- 
tennial of  the  Supreme  Court  was  a  very  conspicu- 
ous and  brilliant  instance,  one  looks  up  and  down 
the  tables  at  the  men  who  are  seated  about  him  at 
some  thronged  and  stately  banquet.  Where  did 
they  come  from?  Well,  they  are  undoubtedly 
"native  and  to  the  manor  born,"  some  of  them. 
There  are  clever  and  successful  lawyers,  mer- 
chants, manufacturers,  and  the  like,  who  are  the 
sons  of  cleverer  men  who  were  here  before  them. 
But  every  now  and  then  one  catches  a  glimpse  of 
some  face  and  figure  that  plainly  enough,  like  young 
Lochinvar,  "has  come  out  of  the  West,"  and  the 
derivation  of  whose  stalwart  proportions  and  breezy 
eloquence  there  is  no  mistaking.  Or  there  is  a  slen- 
der and  somewhat  dyspeptic-looking  figure,  whose 
nasal  tone,  struggle  as  he  may  to  conquer  or  to  con- 
ceal it,  inevitably  "gives  him  away  "  as  a  New  Eng- 
lander.  Or,  yet  again,  there  is  that  litheness  of 
figure,  and  prolongation  of  the  vowel-sounds,  and 
slight  softening  or  elision  of  the  consonants  in 
speech,  which  tell  that  the  speaker  is  a  Southerner. 

148 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

None  of  these  people  were  born  in  New  York. 
None  of  them  came  here  because  there  was  an  es- 
tate, bequeathed  to  them  by  a  benevolent  uncle, 
waiting  to  be  paid  over  to  them.  They  came  here 
because,  in  the  competitions  and  rivalries  of  a 
great  city,  they  believed  that  there  was  the  best 
chance  for  such  gifts  as  they  conceived  themselves 
to  have.  If  some  resident  cynic  answered  them, 
in  the  words  of  Daniel  Webster  when  he  was 
asked  if  there  was  any  room  in  the  profession  for 
more  lawyers,  "  Plenty  of  room  at  the  top,"  they 
believed,  though  probably  they  did  not  say  so,  that 
that  was  just  where  they  were  bound. 

To  the  top  —  ah,  yes !  that  is  it.  That  is  the 
dream  of  every  man  and  boy,  of  every  young  girl, 
who  seeks  a  chance  in  New  York.  And  out  of 
that  dream  there  arises  a  condition  of  things  of 
which  both  country  and  city  may  wisely  take  note. 

The  drift  from  the  farm  to  the  town  is  one  of 
the  most  marked  characteristics  of  our  American 
life.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  almost  nobody 
stays  in  the  country  if  he  can  help  it,  and  that  that 
elder  love  of  ancestral  acres,  and  that  traditional 
attachment  to  the  old  homestead  which  was  a  very 
real  and  potent  thing  with  our  fathers,  and  which 
contributed  immensely  to  the  stability  and  in  a 
very  real  sense  the  dignity  of  rural  communities 
in  earlier  generations,  have  largely  disappeared. 
"What  is  the  difference  between  the  civilization 
of  England  and  America  ?  "  asked  an  American  of 
an  EngUshman.  "  This,  at  any  rate,"  said  the  Eng- 
lishman :  "  that  in  America  there  is  not  a  foot  of 
"*  149 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

land  that  is  not  for  sale,  while  in  England  there 
are  millions  of  acres  which  cannot  be  bought."  In 
a  sense  the  remark  was  true,  and  in  so  far  as  it 
is,  it  involves  an  element  of  permanence  in  those 
communities  in  which  it  is  true  which  among  us 
is  largely  unknown.  And  whether  it  is  the  loosen- 
ing of  this  tie,  or  the  depressing  influence  of  the 
isolation  of  rural  life,  or  the  love  of  excitement, 
that  di'ift  of  which  I  have  spoken  increases  instead 
of  diminishing,  until  it  comes  to  pass  that  a  very- 
considerable  element  of  the  activity  of  almost  any 
large  community  in  America  is  composed  of  those 
who  are  not  native  to  it. 

Well,  it  may  be  said,  it  is  not  only  unavoid- 
able, but  indispensable,  that  it  should  be  so.  The 
waste  of  any  great  machinery  is  enormous,  and 
of  no  mechanism  is  that  more  true  than  of  that 
complex  social  order  which  makes  up  the  life  of  a 
gi*eat  city.  It  is  here  that  we  find  the  explanation 
of  that  increasing  demand  for  young  men  which 
our  modern  life,  in  all  great  cities  especially,  so 
conspicuously  illustrates.  Most  of  those  who  will 
read  these  lines  doubtless  saw  a  recent  paragi'aph 
as  to  the  relative  endurance  of  the  engineers  of 
express  and  freight  railway-trains,  in  which  it  was 
shown  how  diiving  a  locomotive  at  the  rate  of 
fifty-five  or  sixty  miles  an  hour  impoverished 
the  engine-driver's  nerve,  so  that  in  a  little  while 
he  could  no  longer  run  his  train  on  time,  and 
was  taken  off  and  put  to  slower  work.  It  is  a 
veiy  significant  incident,  and  indeed  may  almost 
be  said  to  be  tj^ical.    Well-nigh  everybody  in  a 

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The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

great  city  is  driving  an  engine.  He  is  running 
himself  on  a  schedule,  and  the  demand  upon  him 
all  the  while  is  to  crowd  just  a  little  more  work  or 
"  sport "  or  excitement  into  the  day  than  his  ner- 
vous machinery  will  stand.  And  so,  presently,  the 
machine  goes  to  pieces.  The  man  gives  out  as  to 
his  brain,  or  his  stomach,  or  some  other  organ  — 
sometimes  gi*adually,  oftener  suddenly,  but  almost 
always  before  his  time.  And  then  (I  do  not  stop 
now  to  ask  what  becomes  of  him;  but  here,  by 
the  way,  is  a  whole  region  which,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  literary  people  have  scarcely  touched  —  and 
what  tragic  realms  there  are  in  it!) — and  then,  the 
first  question  is,  "  Where  shall  we  find  somebody, 
tough,  cheap,  and  with  all  the  fine  audacity  of 
youth,  to  fill  his  place  ? "  Cities  do  not  ordinarily 
breed  such  people,  and  so  you  have  the  next  step 
in  the  rural  evolution.  Here  is  a  lad,  a  youth, 
who  is  burning  to  get  "  into  the  swim  "  of  a  great 
city's  life.  He  is  willing  to  do  almost  anything  for 
almost  nothing,  and  often  he  has  ambition  enough 
to  resolve  to  do  it  with  all  his  might.  And  over 
against  him  is  the  great,  restless,  omnivorous  mon- 
ster, forever  hungry  for  youth  and  ardor  and  en- 
ergy, waiting  to  absorb  him  into  its  capacious  maw, 
and  to  convert  him  into  the  bone  and  muscle  of  the 
on-rushing  civic  organism. 

But  at  this  point  there  occur  the  questions. 
What  is  the  ratio  of  waste  to  the  whole  consump- 
tion I  What  is  the  average  "  life "  (as  they  say  of 
a  car- wheel)  of  a  man  who  is  at  work  in  the  city  ? 
and.  How  far  does  any  one  who  finds  his  way  to 

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The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

town  "make,"  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  phrase, 
the  most  of  himself  ? 

It  cannot  be  denied,  I  think,  that  the  waste  is 
enormous ;  that  the  average  life  is  shorter  than  the 
scriptural  measure  of  man's  days,  or  than  it  ought 
to  be ;  and  that  it  is  only  in  exceptional  cases  that 
its  results  are  such  as  are  greatly  to  be  admired  or 
desired. 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  point  at  which  I 
am  aiming.  Of  course  the  reasons  for  failure  in 
most  instances  are  largely  to  be  found  where  the 
failure  was  made.  There  was  inadequate  oppor- 
tunity, or  indolence,  or  incapacity,  or  vice,  and  the 
man  accomphshed  little  or  nothing  because,  as  we 
are  wont  to  say,  "It  was  not  in  him."  But  why 
was  it  not  in  him  I  Of  course  we  cannot  trepan  a 
boy  and  put  an  ounce  or  two  of  gray  matter  into 
his  brain-cavity.  And  if  one  has  not  robust 
health  (an  enormous  factor  in  the  ordinary  success 
of  life),  energy,  acuteness,  cleverness,  we  cannot 
purchase  these  things  for  him.  But  estimate  the 
initial  differences  between  boy  and  boy,  between 
man  and  man,  as  highly  as  you  please,  there  still 
remains  the  almost  incalculable  advantage  which 
one  has  whose  powers,  great  or  small,  have  been 
trained,  over  him  whose  powers  have  not  been 
trained. 

Take,  for  example,  that  matter  of  physical  health 
and  endurance.  When  some  one  remonstrated 
with  Mr.  Ealph  Waldo  Emerson  for  eating  mince- 
pie  for  breakfast,  the  great  Concord  philosopher 
replied  gently,  "Nay,  but  for  what  is  mince-pie 

152 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

made,  if  not  to  be  eaten?"  One  could  not  wear 
it  (unless  as  a  poultice),  or  warm  himself  with  it, 
or  even  "  hitch  it  to  a  star " ;  and,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, it  appeared  to  a  person  of  very  gi'eat 
intellectual  gifts  a  plain  duty  to  eat  it. 

And  yet,  all  the  same,  it  was  not  —  not,  at  any 
rate,  for  breakfast.  There  are  certain  rules  of  diet 
that  no  one  can  long  disregard  without  permanent 
injury  to  health  and  both  mental  and  moral  vigor. 
And  as  of  diet,  so  of  dress,  sleep,  exercise,  and  all 
the  rest  which  have  to  do  with  that  fine  and  com- 
plex instrument  which  we  call  the  body.  And 
if  we  could  run  back  the  record  of  many  a  man 
who  drops  dead  on  'Change,  or  totters  and  falls, 
stricken  with  apoplexy  or  paralysis,  in  the  street, 
or  surrenders  to  some  epidemic  disease  with  scarce 
an  effort  at  resistance,  we  should  find  that  the 
fatal  weakness  that  sapped  the  foundations  of  life 
began  long  ago  in  some  boyish  or  youthful  indul- 
gence, or  indiscretion,  or  unbridled  license,  at  the 
table  or  elsewhere,  which  could  never  afterward 
be  cured  by  any  temperance,  or  self-restraint,  or 
even  total  abstinence,  however  vigilantly  main- 
tained. 

Now,  making  every  allowance  for  youthful 
greediness,  recklessness,  waywardness,  much  of 
this  sort  of  folly  is  plainly  to  be  traced  to  original 
ignorance.  The  teaching  of  our  American  homes 
as  to  the  laws  of  health  is  miserably  defective,  and 
it  is  not  less  so  in  the  homes  of  wealth  and  culti- 
vated intelligence  than  in  those  of  ignorance  and 
narrow  means.    There  is  an  indifference,  a  pa- 

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The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

rental  ignorance,  a  mauvaise  honte, — a  bad  shame, 
— which  is  silent  and  unobservant  when  it  ought  to 
be  watchful  and  speak.  And  the  schools  are  not 
often  gi*eatly  better  in  these  respects  than  the 
homes.  They  are,  I  gladly  own,  striving  to  be 
better ;  but  taking  our  common-school  system  as  a 
whole,  I  believe  the  time  will  come  when  we  shall 
look  back  with  amazement  at  the  folly  and  vicious- 
ness  of  a  system  which,  employed  in  teaching  boys 
and  girls  a  large  proportion  of  whose  usefulness, 
happiness,  and  success  in  life  depended  upon  the 
mens  scma  in  corpore  sano, — the  sound  mind  dwelling 
in  the  temple  of  the  sound  body, —  was  so  largely 
silent  as  to  the  laws  of  the  body,  its  construction, 
use  and  abuse,  and  the  conditions  on  which  its 
health  and  well-being  depend. 

And  so  I  think  that  if  I  were  a  public-spirited 
citizen,  with  the  means  to  bless  and  ennoble  at 
once  the  place  of  my  birth  and  the  city  of  my 
adoption, — if  I  were  frank  to  recognize,  as  any 
honest  mind  must  be,  the  close  and  vital  relation 
between  the  better  life  of  our  great  city  and  the 
purifying  and  enriching  of  those  streams  which, 
from  villages  and  hamlets  and  homes  all  over  the 
land,  are  perpetually  pouring  into  them, — I  would 
stop  to  consider  whether  it  were  not  worth  while 
to  begin  right  here.  Every  now  and  then  we  hear 
of  some  one  who  has  not  forgotten  his  more  mod- 
est beginnings  retm*ning  to  his  native  place  and 
enriching  it  with  some  generous  benefaction.  It 
is  one  of  the  finest  and  most  engaging  exhibitions 
of  the  nobler  impulses  of  our  humanity.    It  is  the 

154 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

illustration  of  the  spii'it  which  goes  a  long  way  to 
redeem  our  modern  life  from  the  charge  of  being 
only  sordid  and  self-seeking.  But  it  is  something 
which  needs  not  only  to  be  appreciated  and  en- 
couraged, but  to  be  wisely  dii'ected.  And  there- 
fore I  would  venture  to  suggest  whether  it  might 
not  be  worth  while  for  some  successful  man  who 
is  moved  to  build  amid  the  scenes  of  his  nativity  a 
monument  to  his  achievements  in  life,  to  consider 
whether  he  could  do  a  better  thing  than  to  erect 
at  some  point  in  the  country  where  men  and  boys 
congregate  a  good  gymnasium  with  a  swimming- 
bath  and  a  ball-gi*ound,  and  a  good-sized  assembly- 
room  where,  now  and  then,  men  could  talk  to  men 
and  boys,  and  women  to  women  and  girls,  as  these 
classes  are  talked  to  from  time  to  time  in  the 
Young  Men's  and  Young  Women's  Associations, 
and  elsewhere,  as  to  the  due  and  decent  care 
and  ennoblement  of  that  matchless  and  beautiful 
mechanism,  the  human  body.  One  is  almost  afraid 
to  quote  the  old  Greeks  in  this  matter,  but  he 
should  not  be.  If  it  be  true  that  fine  physical  cul- 
ture was  with  them  too  often  associated  with 
moral  decadence,  it  need  not  be.  One  may  never 
forget  that  the  most  striking  figures  of  the  glow- 
ing rhetoric  of  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles, 
as  he  described  the  struggle  and  discipline  de- 
manded in  the  Christian  life,  were  borrowed  from 
the  classic  arena;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  he 
would  not  have  used  them  if  he  had  accounted  his 
illustrations  illustrations  of  things  evil  in  them- 
selves. 

155 


The  Rubral  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

But  in  such  a  scheme  as  I  have  suggested,  I  do 
not  believe  that  any  thinking  man  would  stop  at 
the  point  at  which  I  have  left  it,  and  that  just 
because  he  is  a  thinking  man.  For  we  may  not 
forget  that  the  body  is,  after  all,  but  an  instru- 
ment, not  an  end.  The  race  does  not  exist,  like  a 
breed  of  Hambletonians  or  Alderneys,  for  certain 
physical  results  of  pace  and  bone  and  muscle  and 
production.  These  are  incidental  to  those  intel- 
lectual and  moral  achievements  which  are  the  call- 
ing of  those  who  were  put  into  the  world  not  only 
"to  replenish  the  earth,"  but  "to  subdue  it,"  to 
master  its  obstinacy,  to  rend  open  its  secrets,  to 
study  its  laws — to  discover — so  far  as  by  discovery 
they  may — its  origin,  to  master  its  forces,  to  dispel 
its  barbarism,  and  so  to  make  ready  a  highway 
and  a  home  for  the  coming  of  the  nobler  kingdom 
that  is  to  be.  And  that  men  may  do  these  things 
requires  not  only  physical  culture,  but  supremely 
the  powers  that  think  and  reason  and  compare, 
and  remember  and  contrive,  and  love  and  hate, 
and  aspire. 

Now,  then,  come  back  for  a  moment  to  a  lad  or  a 
youth  who  has  come  up  to  town  from  the  country. 
He  gets,  it  may  be,  sooner  or  later,  a  fair  foothold. 
He  pushes  his  way,  step  by  step,  till  he  climbs  to 
the  high  places  of  his  business  or  profession.  But 
unless  he  has  had  during  his  youth  what  are  still, 
in  America,  exceptional  advantages  of  culture,  a 
man  under  such  circumstances  will  find  himself 
increasingly  plagued  with  a  sense  of  his  intellec- 
tual deficiencies,  his  want  of  general  culture,  his 

is6 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

poverty, — no  matter  what  the  size  of  his  bank 
account,  which,  he  learns,  is  in  that  direction  as 
well  as  some  others  simply  and  utterly  impo- 
tent,— his  poverty  in  things  that  give  him  the  easy 
command  of  his  powers,  that  give  grace  and  dig- 
nity to  the  occupancy  of  great  place,  that  make 
him  at  home  among  the  thinkers  and  leaders  of 
his  time,  and  that  make  history  and  politics,  and 
art  and  letters  and  religion,  a  living  unity,  in- 
stead of  a  bafOing  and  unmeaning  jumble  and  con- 
fusion. 

And  here  it  is  that  there  would  seem  to  be  no 
unworthy  opportunity  for  such  a  use  of  wealth  as 
would  make  both  a  higher  cultm-e  and  higher  as- 
pirations more  easily  attainable  things.  You  can- 
not have  a  college,  or  even  a  high  school,  in  every 
village  or  at  eveiy  cross-road ;  but  it  would  not  be 
impossible  to  multiply  centers  of  illumination  such 
as  were  typified  by  the  district-school  libraries  of 
forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  It  is  just  here  that  such 
an  institution  as  Mudie's  circulating  library,  which 
sends  books  in  parcels  all  over  England,  and  col- 
lects them  weekly  or  monthly,  has  considerable 
suggestive  value.  The  smaller  centers,  country 
towns  and  railway  stations,  from  which  the  ordi- 
nary commodities  of  life  are  distributed,  might 
well  be  centers  of  distribution  for  food  and  furni- 
ture of  a  higher  order.  And  then,  in  connection 
with  some  lyceum  erected  by  the  munificence  of 
some  native  of  the  neighborhood  who  has  made 
his  fortune  in  some  metropolis,  we  might  wisely 
revive  the  lecture  course  of  thirty  or  forty  years 

157 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

ago.  It  has  been  killed,  I  know,  by  deterioration; 
and  the  evolution  of  the  lyceum  into  the  minstrel 
show — Mr.  Wendell  Phillips  and  Dr.  Chapin  being 
replaced  by  the  "end  men" — is  not  an  inviting  pic- 
ture of  om*  American  progress.  But  the  minstrel 
show  has  well-nigh  had  its  day.  There  is  a  very 
genuine  and  prevalent  hunger  for  something  more 
nourishing;  and  I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  there 
are  many  places  where  something  that  at  once 
stimulated  intellectual  curiosity  and  satisfied  it 
would  find  a  hearty  welcome. 

And  so  of  the  highest  culture  of  aU.  The  re- 
ligious problem  in  America  is  a  very  grave  one, 
though  I  am  sanguine  enough  to  believe  that  it 
has  elements  of  equal  promise  and  hope.  In  such 
a  paper  as  this  I  cannot,  of  course,  undertake  to 
discuss  even  a  mere  fragment  of  it ;  but  I  may  per- 
haps ventm-e  to  suggest  how  it  is  related  to  the 
subject  which  I  have  thus  far  been  considering. 
In  a  general  way,  religion  stands  preeminently  for 
the  teaching  that  inculcates  and  the  motives  that 
promote  and  strengthen  good  morals.  But  nobody 
will  pretend  that,  in  the  gi'eat  majority  of  cases, 
it  might  not,  with  greater  advantages  of  various 
kinds,  promote  them  far  more  efficiently  by  a 
higher  standard  of  culture  and  character  in  the 
clergy,  by  improved  conveniences  for  public  wor- 
ship, by  the  religious  training  of  children,  with 
a  due  (not  an  undue)  regard  to  the  influence  of 
the  imagination  and  the  poetic  sense  in  connec- 
tion with  such  means  as  are  usually  employed  to 
awaken  nobler  aspirations,  enkindle  faith,  and  up- 

158 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

build,  often  in  the  midst  of  a  very  coarse  material- 
ism, the  spiritual  Kfe.  In  his  "Gospel  of  Wealth," 
Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  puts  this  in  a  veiy  striking 
and  admirable  way : 

Every  millionaire  may  know  of  a  district  where  the 
httle  cheap,  uncomfortable,  and  altogether  unworthy 
wooden  structure  stands  at  the  cross-roads,  where  the 
whole  neighborhood  gathers  on  Sunday,  and  which,  inde- 
pendently of  the  form  of  the  doctrine  taught,  is  the 
center  of  social  hfe  and  center  of  neighborly  feeling. 
The  administrator  of  wealth  has  made  a  good  use  of  part 
of  his  surplus  if  he  replaces  that  building  -with  a  per- 
manent structure  of  brick,  stone,  or  granite,  up  the  sides 
of  which  the  honeysuckle  and  columbine  may  climb,  and 
from  whose  tower  the  sweet-toUing  bell  may  sound. 
The  millionaire  should  not  figure  how  cheaply  this  struc- 
ture can  be  built,  but  how  perfect  it  can  be  made.  K  he 
has  the  money,  it  should  be  made  a  gem,  for  the  educat- 
ing influence  of  a  pure  and  noble  specimen  of  architec- 
ture, built,  as  the  pyramids  were  built,  to  stand  for  ages, 
is  not  to  be  measured  by  dollars.  Every  farmer's  home, 
heart,  and  mind  in  the  district  will  be  influenced  by  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  church.  And  many  a  bright 
boy,  gazing  enraptured  upon  its  richly  colored  windows 
and  entranced  by  the  celestial  voice  of  the  organ,  will 
there  receive  his  fii'st  message  from,  and  be  carried 
under  the  sway  of,  the  gloriously  beautiful  and  enchant- 
ing realm  which  Ues  far  away  from  the  material  and  pro- 
saic conditions  which  surround  him  in  this  work-a-day 
world — a  real  world,  this  new  realm,  vague  and  unde- 
fined though  its  boundaries  be.  Once  within  its  magic 
circle,  its  denizens  Hve  there  an  inner  life  more  precious 
than  the  external ;  and  all  their  days,  and  all  their  ways, 
their  triumphs  and  their  trials,  and  all  they  see,  and  all 

159 


Tbe  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

they  hear,  and  all  they  think,  and  all  they  do,  are  hal- 
lowed by  the  radiance  which  shines  from  afar  upon  this 
inner  life,  glorifj-ing  everything,  and  keeping  all  right 
within. 


Mr.  Carnegie  goes  on  to  say  that  having  reared 
such  a  building,  its  builder  may  wisely  leave  it  to 
be  supported  by  the  people;  but  I  am  disposed 
to  think  that  some  partial  endowment,  made  con- 
ditional upon  the  maintenance  of  the  ser^dces, 
would  not  be  amiss.  It  is  certainly  not  amiss  that 
ministers  should  be  partially  dependent  upon  their 
people.  It  is  not  desirable  that  any  one  who  is 
set  as  a  preacher  and  teacher  of  righteousness 
should  be  absolutely  so.  There  is  a  painful  page 
of  our  American  religious  history,  just  here,  which 
at  this  moment  I  do  not  care  to  tm*n.  "Thou 
shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the 
corn":  but  too  often  there  is  no  remonstrance 
when  insolent  wealth,  sitting  in  the  vestry  or  in 
the  session  or  in  the  pews,  threatens  to  "  stop  the 
supphes,"  and  so  effectually  muzzle  the  mouth  of 
the  anointed  witness  for  God  and  duty  and  right- 
eous dealing.  We  should  have  a  higher  type  of 
manhood,  of  rectitude,  of  pm*ity,  of  political  and 
personal  honesty  in  Wall  Street  and  in  Albany,  if 
we  could  have  a  higher  type  of  truth-speaking  and 
God-fearing  manhood  for  the  pulpits  of  the  land. 
Here  is  a  chance  for  wealth.  Let  it  endow  some 
rural  pulpits,  and  then  leave  the  trust  in  wise  and 
faithful  hands  that  will  see  that  it  is  wisely  ad- 
ministered.    Imagine   such   an  endowment   com- 

i6o 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

mitted  to  the  wisdom  and  integrity  that  to-day- 
administer  so  many  of  our  American  colleges !  It 
might  even  be  intrusted  to  a  bishop  occasionally ! 

So  much  by  way  of  suggestion  as  to  the  rural 
reinforcement  of  cities,  its  character  and  training. 
Of  course  I  am  not  unmindful  of  what  has  doubt- 
less been  in  the  mind  of  my  reader  all  along, 
"  This  is  all  very  well,"  it  may  be  said ;  "  but  it 
touches  a  very  small  part  of  those  who  pour  in 
such  ceaseless  streams  into  almost  any  great  city 
like  New  York.  What  are  you  going  to  do  with 
those  sti'eams  that  come  to  us,  not  from  within  the 
borders  of  om'  own  land,  but  from  beyond  them  ? 
The  reinforcement  of  the  population  of  New  York 
comes,  a  very  small  part  of  it  relatively,  from  in- 
land towns,  villages,  and  homes.  The  ratio  of  im- 
migration to  a  gi-eat  city  is  as  ten  to  one,  more 
probably  as  twenty  to  one,  in  favor  of  that  which 
comes  from  foreign  lands.  What  are  you  going  to 
do  with  these  I "  That  is  indeed  a  very  large  and 
increasingly  grave  question.  But  it  is  a  question 
by  itself ;  and  all  the  more  because  it  is  a  question 
of  exceptional  gi*avity,  and  because  at  present, 
under  existing  laws,  we  can  do  little  —  indeed, 
almost  nothing — to  regulate  the  character  and  the 
quality  of  foreign  immigration  into  New  York,  is 
it  of  paramount  importance  that  we  should  en- 
noble the  quality  of  our  own.  Multum,  non  multa. 
This  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  numbers  as  of 
character.  Never  more  urgently  than  to-day  did 
New  York  need  a  nucleus,  a  saving  seed,  of  right- 
eousness and  integrity  to  stand  the  strain  of  its 
11  i6i 


The  Rural  Reinforcement  of  Cities 

fevered  and  reckless  life.  And  the  men  who  are 
to  do  this,  the  men  round  whom,  as  centers  of 
columnar  and  immovable  civic  virtue  and  upright- 
ness, their  fellows  are  to  rally  in  times  of  popular 
passion,  of  selfishness,  of  social  and  political  cor- 
ruption, are  men  who  have  been  trained  from 
their  youth  in  upright  and  manly  ways,  and  in 
whom  vigor  and  culture  and  reverence  unite  to 
make  them  worthy  leaders  of  their  kind.  Happy 
the  city  that  has  the  wisdom  and  the  forecasting 
munificence  that  conspire  to  rear  such  men;  and 
then,  when  the  time  for  them  to  serve  the  city,  the 
State,  the  nation,  shall  come,  the  wisdom  to  trust 
and  honor  them ! 


162 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  CRIMINAL 

A   PAPER 
Read  before  the  Church  Congress,  at  Richmond,  Va.,  October,  1882 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  CRIMINAL 


I  AM  to  speak  this  morning  of  the  relation  of 
Christianity  to  the  criminal  classes.  With  the 
secretary's  hand  upon  yonder  bell,  I  must  needs 
define  my  subject,  if  only  to  nan*ow  its  discussion. 
We  are  not  concerned  during  this  hour,  I  take  it, 
with  Eussian  Christianity,  nor  with  the  Egyptian 
criminal.  What  the  Archimandrite  of  Moscow 
ought  to  have  done  in  the  matter  of  murderers  of 
their  fellow-citizens  in  the  last  Slav  insurrection 
against  the  Jews,  how  the  congress  of  the  powers 
should  deal  with  Arabi  and  Tewfik  Pasha,  are 
doubtless  interesting  and  opportune  questions ;  but 
not  here  and  to-day.  Our  concern  is  with  om-  own 
Christianity  and  our  own  criminals,  and  it  is  time 
that  we  awoke  to  it. 

For  the  situation  to-day  is  unique  and  anoma- 
lous. On  the  one  hand,  in  this  Anglo-Saxon  civili- 
zation of  ours  is  a  vast  force,  organized,  aggressive, 
reformatory.  We  may  call  it  Christianity,  the 
church  of  God,  in  this  new  world  of  ours,  or  the 
organized  expression  of  the  religion  of  the  New 
"*  165 


Christianity  and  the  Criminal 

Testament.  It  is  no  matter.  We  all  know  its 
aims,  its  origin,  and  above  all  its  Master.  He  an- 
nounced himself  as  having  a  special  mission  to 
the  prisoner  and  the  criminal.  He  came  into  the 
world  to  distinguish  these  by  his  notice,  and  to 
uplift  them  by  his  touch.  This  chm-ch,  with  its 
church  congress,  is  his  chm*ch  a  gi'eat  deal  more 
than  it  is  yours  or  mine  or  anybody  else's.  And 
over  against  this  church  of  his  there  stands  to-day 
a  vast  army  of  men  and  women,  and — God  forgive 
us  that  it  should  be  so !  —  of  children,  too,  who  can 
be  designated  in  no  other  way  so  readily  and  ex- 
actly as  to  call  them  criminals.  The  criminal 
classes!  How  it  ought  to  enlarge  that  infinite 
swagger  with  which  we  Americans  lift  ourselves 
above  the  outworn  civilizations  of  the  elder  world, 
to  remember  that  whatever  may  be  their  throngs  of 
convicts  and  criminals,  we  can  rival,  if  we  cannot 
outnumber  them ;  that  however  many  condemned 
felons  there  may  be  in  their  Bastilles,  we  can  equal 
them  with  the  multitudes  that  crowd  the  cells  of 
our  State  prisons  !  How  much  it  ought  to  deepen 
our  complacency,  too,  to  remind  ourselves  that 
whatever  may  be  their  indifference  in  any  other 
and  older  land  to  their  criminal  classes,  ours  is  as 
great,  if  not  greater ;  that  however  profound  may 
be  European  ignorance  concerning  the  condition 
and  prospects  of  these  classes,  American  indiffer- 
ence can  easily  match  it !  Here  is  a  vast  constitu- 
ency numbering  in  America  to-day  some  hundreds 
of  thousands,  concerning  whom  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  not  one  Christian  disciple  in  a  hundi*ed  thou- 

i66 


Cbristianity  and  the  Criminal 

sand  ever  hears  from  year's  end  to  year's  end  one 
word  as  to  his  personal  duty  from  Christian  pulpit 
or  from  Christian  press.  No !  I  am  wrong  there. 
The  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew's  gospel 
is  still  included  in  the  church's  calendar ;  and  un- 
less the  minister  tampers  with  it,  he  must  needs 
remind  those  who  hear  him  read  the  lessons  that 
one  test  that  bars  the  gateway  of  the  upper  sanc- 
tuary will  be  the  question :  "  I  was  in  prison, — yes, 
I, —  in  the  image  of  some  poor  lost  child  of  mine. 
Bid  ye  visit  me  f  "  But,  beyond  this,  what  is  taught 
as  to  the  duty  of  Christian  people  to  the  felon? 
as  to  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  criminal  ? 

I  will  tell  you  what  is  taught,  not  by  precept, 
but  far  more  eloquently  by  practice.  The  instance 
which  I  shall  relate  belongs  on  the  other  side  of 
the  water;  but  it  describes,  as  I  think  you  will  own, 
what  is  no  less  true  on  this.  Two  young  collegians 
started  from  Oxford  one  day  on  an  outing,  with 
a  hired  horse  and  gig.  One  of  them  was  a  no- 
bleman, and  the  other  a  commoner.  They  found 
themselves  at  length  at  Bristol,  without  money, 
and  without  means  of  communicating  with  their 
friends.  They  sold  the  horse  and  gig,  and  started 
back  to  college,  intending  to  pay  the  livery-stable 
keeper  from  resources  awaiting  them  on  their  re- 
turn. But  they  were  delayed,  and  when  they 
reached  Oxford  were  arrested  and  tried  for  the 
theft.  The  nobleman  was  shielded  by  his  rank, 
but  the  commoner  was  convicted  and  transported 
to  New  South  Wales.  He  served  his  term,  was 
discharged,  went  to  work  in  the  colony,  prospered, 

167 


Christianity  and  the  Criminal 

married,  and  rose  to  respectability,  if  not  to  emi- 
nence. Forty  years  later  he  returned  to  England. 
A  business  transaction  brought  him  into  court  one 
day  as  a  witness.  His  examination  was  concluded, 
and  he  was  about  to  step  down,  when  suddenly 
the  opposing  counsel  turned  upon  him  and  said 
sharply :  "  Were  you  ever  transported  ? "  The  wit- 
ness blanched  and  quivered,  but  did  not  lie.  "  Yes," 
he  answered;  "forty-three  years  ago,  under  cir- 
cumstances which  I  can  —  "  "  Never  mind  the  cu'- 
cumstances,  sir.  The  fact  is  all  I  want  to  know. 
I  have  no  further  questions  to  ask  this  witness, 
my  lord!"  said  the  lawyer,  and  sat  down.  The 
witness  sat  down  too,  smitten,  speechless,  ruined. 
Denied  an  explanation,  he  left  that  court-room 
bearing  a  stigma  which  society — Christian,  com- 
mercial, fashionable  society  —  could  not  forgive. 
It  shunned  him  from  that  hour  as  though  he  had 
the  plague.  His  credit  was  gone,  his  business  was 
destroyed,  and  in  three  months  he  died  of  a  broken 
heart. 

Yes,  this  is  what  Christianity,  our  Christianity, 
the  Christianity  of  week-days  and  society,  the 
Christianity  of  deeds,  not  words,  has  to  say  to  the 
criminal  classes :  "  Shave  as  close  as  you  please  to 
the  edge  of  criminal  wrong-doing,  and  nothing 
shall  harm  you.  Steal,  but  don't  be  found  out ; 
defraud,  but  put  the  money  back  before  quarter- 
day;  break  your  trust,  and  indulge  your  greed  or 
lust  or  illicit  ambition,  but  keep  inside  of  the  line 
of  detection,  and  it  is  all  right.  But  yield  under 
some  strong  pressure,  and  so  blunder  in  your  theft, 


Chmtianity  and  the  Criminal 

your  intrigue,  youi*  defalcation,  that  you  can't 
cover  it  up,  and  the  world,  the  Christian  world, 
your  brethren  in  the  family,  whose  elder  brother  is 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  will  have  no  more  of  you." 
I  am  not  unmindful,  in  saying  this,  that  in  more 
than  one  community  there  is  a  Prisoners'  Friend 
Society,  in  which  those  noble  Christian  men  who 
adorn  the  Society  of  Friends  have  always  borne  a 
conspicuous  and  honorable  part,  nor  that  here  and 
there  in  jails  and  penitentiaries  you  will  find  some 
brave  and  tender  heart  trying  to  lead  men  out  of 
that  living  hell  into  which  their  sins  have  cast 
them.  But  this  I  af&i-m:  that  Christian  society 
stands,  as  a  body,  with  a  front  of  brass  turned 
inexorably  toward  the  criminal  classes.  God  for- 
gives, but  they  will  not.  The  woman  that  was  a 
sinner  he  once  welcomed,  but  they  spurn  her. 
The  man  who  had  fallen  he  beckoned  back  into 
his  own  loving  fellowship,  but  they  repel  him.  In 
one  word,  the  criminal  and  the  criminal  classes 
stand  to-day,  as  a  rule,  in  the  large,  to  the  Christian 
Brahman  as  a  Pariah,  not  to  be  touched,  not  to  be 
owned,  not  to  be  defiled,  if  one  can  help  it,  by  even 
so  much  or  so  little  as  his  passing  shadow.  The 
jail-bii"d,  this  is  the  fowl  turned  verily  out  of  the 
Christian  ark,  and  for  whom  the  deluge  never 
subsides ! 

It  is  time  that  such  an  infamy  were  ended.  Let 
us  be  pagans,  agnostics,  Mohammedans,  what  you 
will;  but  let  the  church  of  Christ  have  done  call- 
ing itself  by  his  name  until  it  can  show  that  it 
has  not  gone  barren  of  his  quickening  spirit. 

169 


Cbmtianity  and  the  Criminal 

In  behalf  of  the  prisoner  in  his  cell,  of  the  pris- 
oner discharged  from  his  cell,  of  the  criminal  who 
has  come  under  sentence  of  the  law,  and  of  the 
criminal  who  has  served  his  sentence  and  who  is 
tm'ned  loose  to  find  his  footing  in  a  hostile  world 
as  best  he  may,  we  want  the  awakening  of  an  in- 
telligent Christian  sympathy,  and  of  some  practical 
expression  of  brotherly  helpfulness  and  regard. 

And  foremost  of  all,  in  behalf  of  the  prisoner  in 
his  cell.  I  have  alluded  to  the  hardship  of  one 
who  has  served  his  time  for  some  penal  offense, 
and  who  has  then  to  walk  the  lonely  and  stony 
pathway  of  a  discharged  criminal.  But  the  moral 
dangers  of  one  who,  for  the  first  time  especially, 
finds  his  way  within  the  walls  of  a  prison  or  pen- 
itentiary are  immeasm'ably  gi'eater.  Our  crim- 
inals and  convicts  may  be  roughly  said  to  be  made 
up  of  two  classes.  There  are,  first,  those  who  are 
in  prison  for  the  second,  third,  fourth,  or  possibly 
twentieth  time.  These  are  persons  who  belong  to 
the  criminal  class  by  dehberate  election,  and  who 
spend  their  time,  while  serving  one  sentence,  in 
devising  crimes  with  which  they  will  celebrate 
their  discharge  from  the  custody  of  the  State.  I 
would  not  seem  to  describe  this  class  too  harshly, 
and  so  I  will  rather  quote  here  the  language  of 
one  who  himself  served  a  term  of  seven  years  in 
a  penitentiary,  and  who  has  put  upon  record  his 
impressions  and  experiences. 

There  are  [says  this  wi'iter]  thousands  of  criminals  to- 
day whose  fathers  and  mothers  are  as  famihar  with  half 

170 


Christianity  and  the  Criminal 

the  prisons  of  the  land  as  they  are:  Many  were  born  in 
prison,  many  more  in  the  ahns-house,  and  nearly  all  of 
them  have  from  their  very  cradle  lived  in  an  atmosphere 
of  vice.  A  clever  professional  thief  whom  I  met  at  Port- 
land two  years  ago  told  me  that  he  got  his  fii'st  lessons 
in  thieving  from  his  mother.  His  father,  he  said,  "  was 
on  the  square,"  "  an  honest  working  man,"  as  he  called 
him,  in  a  grocery  house.  The  idea  of  morality  enter- 
tained by  this  class  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that 
what  this  prisoner  meant  by  being  "on  the  square  "  was 
that  his  father,  though  as  habitual  a  thief  as  his  mother, 
had  never  been  caught. 

But  he  and  his  belonged,  of  deliberate  choice,  to 
the  criminal  classes.  And  what  impression  this 
writer  formed  of  these  classes  from  seven  years' 
close  and  intimate  contact  with  them  he  himself 
tells  us. 

They  are  [he  says]  simply  dead  to  all  sense  of  shame. 
They  approach  more  closely  than  before  I  could  have 
conceived  possible  to  the  idea  of  universal  and  consum- 
mate depravity.  They  think  nothing  of  passing  their 
Hves  in  inflicting  misery  upon  their  f ellow-creatui*es,  and 
they  do  it  not  only  without  remorse,  but  with  a  hideous 
raptui-e.  Their  social  habits  are  as  loathsome  inside  the 
prison  as  in  the  vilest  dens  without.  They  have  so  fixed 
a  propensity  for  all  horrible  vices,  that  if  the  sensuality, 
the  poltroonery,  the  baseness,  the  effi'ontery,  the  men- 
dacity, and  the  barbarity  which  distinguish  the  every- 
day life  of  these  professional  criminals  were  depicted  in 
the  character  of  a  hero  in  a  criminal  romance,  it  woidd 
be  set  down  as  a  caricature.  I  am  not  exaggerating 
when  I  solemnly  declare  that  whatsoever  things  are 
filthy,  whatsoever  things  are  unjust,  whatsoever  things 

171 


Christianity  and  the  Criminal 

are  hateful  and  fiendish,  if  there  be  any  vice  and  infamy- 
deeper  and  more  horrible  than  all  other  vice  and  in- 
famy, it  may  be  found  ingrained  in  the  character  of 
the  professional  criminal.  Compared  with  him,  Gulliver's 
Yahoos  were  refined  gentlemen  ! 


Now,  plainly,  Christian  civilization  has  a  duty 
to  such  a  class  as  this.  If  there  is  anything  left 
in  it  to  which  the  nobler  motives  of  the  New 
Testament  can  appeal,  it  must  not  be  left  unad- 
dressed.  But,  meantime,  a  church  which  repre- 
sents the  moral  force  in  society  has  a  plain  voca- 
tion to  say  to  the  State :  "  You  shall  not  so  handle 
these  pests  of  society,  in  your  so-called  puni- 
tive dealings  with  them,  as  to  make  them  pest- 
breeders!  Do  your  punishments  punish?  Do  your 
penalties  deter?  You  have  banished  the  scourge 
and  the  lash  —  do  you  realize  that  you  have  thus 
thrown  away  the  one  weapon  that  can  deter  mul- 
titudes from  vice?"  The  question  is  not  one 
which  is  any  longer  open  to  serious  discussion. 
When,  a  few  years  ago,  a  respectable  person  could 
hardly  walk  through  the  London  parks  at  night 
without  the  peril  of  being  garroted,  the  authori- 
ties, after  ha^dng  tried  in  vain  to  restrict  this  bar- 
barism by  other  means,  imposed  a  few  sentences 
of  whipping.  The  thing  operated  almost  with  the 
suddenness  of  magic.  In  thirty  days  the  crime 
had  virtually  disappeared,  and  so  long  as  that  pen- 
alty stands  over  against  it,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it 
will  not  be  heard  of  again. 

Such  an  isolated  fact  has  abundant  meaning  for 
172 


Christianity  and  the  Criminal 

the  Christian  public.  There  is  a  maudlin  senti- 
mentalism  that  coddles  the  criminal  as  though  he 
were  the  innocent  victim  of  the  evil  forces  of  so- 
ciety ;  and  there  are  hardened  criminals  who  trade 
upon  such  a  sentiment  with  insolent  effrontery. 
For  all  such  it  is  the  function  of  the  church  of 
God,  as  representing  his  outraged  moral  law,  to  in- 
sist that  the  State,  its  executive  (who  so  often  of- 
fends a  healthy  moral  sentiment  by  exercising  the 
pardoning  power  on  insufficient  grounds),  its  high- 
est and  its  lowest  officials  on  the  bench,  in  jails, 
and  prisons,  and  anywhere  else  that  law  is  admin- 
istered and  crime  punished  —  that  all  these,  our 
representatives,  shall  have  for  the  incorrigible 
and  the  impenitent  a  front  of  brass  and  a  hand 
of  iron! 

But  there  is  another  and  a  very  different  class 
of  criminals;  and  it  is  for  these  most  of  all  that 
our  Christianity  of  to-day  needs  to  be  concerned. 
A  vice  of  om'  prison  system  which  cannot  be  too 
strongly  reprobated  or  too  speedily  reformed  is 
that  which  herds  together  such  hardened  offen- 
ders as  I  have  just  referred  to  with  those  who 
from  their  first  false  step  find  themselves  for  the 
first  time  within  prison  walls.     Said  one  of  these : 

I  can  forgive  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  who  so 
cruelly  exaggerated  my  crime,  and  the  judge  who  dis- 
missed me  to  my  doom  with  such  cold  indifference ;  but 
the  State,  and  the  Christian  society  beliind  it,  which  con- 
demned me  during  all  those  dreary  years  to  the  society 
of  hfe-long  felons  and  hardened  and  infamous  offenders 
—  these  I  cannot  forgive  ! 

173 


Cbristianity  and  the  Criminal 

Nor  ought  we^  even  though  the  sentence  lie  against 
ourselves ! 

For  here,  at  this  crisis  in  the  life  of  one  who  has 
fallen  under  sentence  of  the  law,  is  the  turning- 
point  of  his  career.  I  dismiss  for  the  moment  the 
question  whether  the  penalties  of  law  should  be 
construed  as  merely  punitive  or  as  reformatoiy. 
But  surely  it  is  worth  while,  if  possible,  so  to 
administer  them  that  they  shall  not  eventuate 
almost  inevitably  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  ruin 
of  the  offender.  As  it  is  now,  what  are  the  facts 
in  the  case  ?  I  give  again  the  testimony  of  a  con- 
vict on  this  point,  as  of  incomparably  more  value 
than  my  own. 

What  [he  writes]  does  the  present  convict  system  do 
for  those  first  offenders  who  do  not  yet  belong  to  the 
class  of  habitual  criminals  ?  It  sentences  them  to  the  so- 
ciety of,  and  thrusts  them  into  close  communion  with,  the 
abandoned  villains  and  professional  thieves  whose  char- 
acteristics I  have  aheady  described.  It  virtually  hinds 
them  as  apprentices  for  a  shorter  or  longer  time  to  learn 
the  trade  of  law-breaking.  They  are,  during  the  whole 
term  of  their  imprisonment,  under  the  influence,  tuition, 
and  example  of  miscreants  who,  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave,  exist  upon  outrage  and  plunder.  They  are  by 
these  men  initiated  into  all  sorts  of  tricks  and  dodges 
by  which  they  can  evade  prison  disciphne  and  elude  the 
burden  of  work  during  their  imprisonment,  and  at  the 
end  of  it  enroll  themselves  in  the  great  and  yearly  in- 
creasing army  of  professional  criminals. 

And  worse  than  this.  A  lad,  a  young  gii-1,  a 
young  or  middle-aged  man  or  woman,  transgi'esses 

174 


Cbristianity  and  the  Criminal 

the  law  for  the  first  time.  Behind  them  and  the 
temptation  to  which  they  yielded  lies  often  a  re- 
cord of  blameless  living  and  comparative  inno- 
cence. What  has  become  of  this  last  when  they 
leave  the  doors  of  a  prison  after  having  served  the 
term  of  their  sentence?  Condemned  day  after 
day  to  the  fellowship  of  the  vile  and  depraved,  it 
is  a  moral  miracle  if  any  sense  of  decency  or  in- 
tegrity sm'vives ! 

Said  a  discharged  convict,  speaking  of  this  to  a 
friend : 

There  are  times  now,  on  my  way  home  and  in  the 
presence  of  my  pure  young  wife,  when  the  memory  of 
the  hideous  oaths,  the  vile  speech,  the  infamous  themes 
and  schemes,  which  were  forced  upon  me  when  I  was  a 
prisoner,  so  rings  in  my  ears  that  I  find  myseK  shudder- 
ing at  the  thought  of  them,  and  wondering  most  of  all 
how  I  ever  escaped  the  pollution  and  ruin,  both  moral 
and  spiritual,  with  which  they  threatened  me. 

Go  into  the  women's  wards  in  one  of  our  great 
prisons  or  jails,  and  see  how  all  ages,  classes,  de- 
grees of  criminals  are  herded  together  dming  the 
so-called  work  hours.  Look  at  some  of  the  faces ; 
catch,  if  you  can,  some  of  the  speech  that  prevails 
there;  and  then  take  notice  of  a  young  girl,  a 
domestic  convicted  for  theft,  a  woman  who  has 
struck  an  angry  blow  in  some  sudden  burst  of 
passion,  and  consider  what  these  who  are  there 
for  the  first  time  will  he  after  they  emerge,  at  the 
end  of  six  months  or  a  year,  from  such  society. 
I  arraign  the  neglect  of  some  scrupulous  and  dis- 

175 


Christianity  and  the  Criminal 

criminating  system  of  classification  in  dealing  with 
criminals  of  both  sexes,  as  one  of  the  darkest  stains 
upon  our  Christian  civilization.  I  arraign  it  as 
the  fruitful  soui'ce  of  crime,  and  as  the  moral  mur- 
der of  human  souls.  Here  is  our  first,  our  most 
urgent  duty  to  the  criminal.  We  are  to  see  to  it 
that,  in  punishing  crime,  we  take  at  least  some 
reasonable  precaution  against  the  permanent  de- 
gradation and  ruin  of  the  criminal. 

I  have  thus  spoken  of  the  way  in  which  so- 
ciety should  deal  with  the  criminal  when  he  re- 
turns to  it,  and  of  the  duty  of  the  State  while  he 
is  still  under  the  sentence  of  the  law.  One  word 
more  as  to  the  character  and  responsibilities  of 
those  to  whose  custody  the  criminal  is  committed. 
I  confess  that  here  the  outlook  seems  more  dis- 
heartening than  in  any  other  direction.  Our  jails 
and  prisons  are  in  the  custody,  usually,  of  those 
whose  appointment  is  the  reward  of  pohtical  ser- 
vice. Of  any  question  as  to  their  moral  and  in- 
tellectual qualifications,  except  it  were  asked  in 
derision,  who  hears?  Doubtless,  often,  there  are 
men  and  women  in  such  positions  who  do  their 
duty,  or  try  to.  All  honor  to  such  for  a  service 
so  noble,  under  conditions  so  discouraging!  But 
what  can  we  expect,  as  a  rule,  under  our  present 
system  ?  A  prison  superintendentship  is  a  pohti- 
cal prize ;  and  he  who  by  his  services  to  the  party 
is  supposed  to  earn  it  must  use  his  power  of 
subordinate  appointment  to  reward  his  political 
associates  and  inferiors.  That  first  —  inevitably, 
infiexibly  first;    and  then  if,  afterward,   he   can 

176 


Chrlstianit/y  and  the  Criminal 

find  an  intelligent,  a  humane,  a  conscientious  dep- 
uty or  assistant  —  very  well.  But  what  shall  we 
say  of  the  prevalence  of  these  characteristics  as  a 
rule  ?  What  a  grand  sphere  here  for  criminal  ser- 
vice reform ! 

I  have  done.  If  I  understand  its  meaning  and 
office  in  the  world,  it  is  the  duty  of  Christianity, 
our  Christianity,  in  its  relations  to  the  criminal, 
to  insist  upon  — 

{a)  The  classification  of  prisoners. 

(6)  The  decent  restriction  of  the  pardoning 
power. 

(c)  The  elevation  of  the  character  and  qualifica- 
tions of  jailers  and  wardens ;  and 

{d)  The  helpful  sympathy  of  Christian  society 
with  discharged  criminals. 

I  should  like,  if  in  this  scamper  of  discussion 
the  opportunity  had  permitted,  to  have  spoken — 

{a)  Of  the  relations  of  prison  labor  to  the  con- 
vict and  his  reformation. 

(&)  Of  intellectual  culture  and  rudimentary  edu- 
cation, both  mental  and  physical,  in  prison ;  and 

(c)  Of  the  large  and  difficult  theme  of  religious 
ministrations  to  the  convict. 

But  enough  if  I  have  merely  torn  open  this 
soiled  and  disreputable  page  in  our  social  his- 
tory, that  others  who  are  to  follow  me  may  read 
its  lessons  in  clearer  and  more  stirring  tones. 
Our  duty  as  churchmen  is  surely  a  very  plain 
one.  The  message  which  has  been  intrusted  to 
us  is  a  message  of  love,  of  hope,  of  redemption, 
even  to  the  prisoner.    Do  you  remember,  in  Victor 

12  ,^.y 


Cbristianity  and  the  Criminal 

Hugo's  great  picture  of  "Les  Miserables,"  the 
meeting  of  Jean  Valjean  and  the  Bishop?  Val- 
jean,  having  been  sentenced  to  five  years'  impris- 
onment for  stealing  a  loaf  of  bread,  is  resentenced 
repeatedly  for  trjdng  to  escape,  until  he  has  re- 
mained in  confinement  nineteen  years.  At  length 
he  is  released,  and  given  the  yellow  passport  that 
describes  him  as  a  discharged  convict.  The  paper 
that  liberates  him  is  the  stigma  that  denounces 
him.  Every  honest  man's  door  is  closed  against 
him  until  he  knocks  at  the  gate  of  the  old  Bishop. 
There,  to  his  surprise,  he  finds  welcome,  food,  and 
shelter.  But  the  evil  spell  of  his  old  life  is  still 
upon  him.  He  cannot  sleep  for  remembrance  of 
the  silver  plate  upon  the  Bishop's  table.  He  rises 
in  the  night,  robs  his  benefactor,  and  flies.  Of 
course  he  is  retaken  and  brought  back.  The  gen- 
darmes who  have  captured  him  lead  him  into  the 
Bishop's  presence  with  the  convicting  bundle  in 
his  hands.  The  old  prelate  rises  to  meet  the 
group  as  they  enter,  and  before  a  word  can  be 
spoken  exclaims:  "Ah!  Valjean,  I  am  glad  to  see 
you !  But  I  gave  you  the  candlesticks  too,  which 
are  also  of  silver.  Why  did  you  not  take  them 
away  with  the  rest?"  He  tells  the  gendarmes 
that  they  have  made  a  mistake,  and  may  retire; 
and  then,  going  up  to  the  cowering  wi-etch  and 
putting  his  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  the  Bishop 
says:  "Jean  Valjean,  my  brother !  you  no  longer 
belong  to  evil,  but  to  good.  I  withdraw  your  soul 
from  black  thoughts  and  the  spirit  of  perdition, 
and  give  it  to  God.    Never  forget  that  you  are  to 

178 


Cbristianity  and  the  Criminal 

employ  this  silver — your  silver  now — in  becoming 
an  honest  man  !  " 

The  setting  of  the  picture  may  be  exaggerated 
and  French,  but  the  spirit  of  it  is  righteous  and 
Christian.  Ours  is  a  gospel,  not  of  implacability, 
but  of  pardon.  Ours  is  a  rehgion,  not  of  damna- 
tion, but  of  hope.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  carry 
its  message  even  to  those  "  spirits  that  are  in 
prison  " ! 


179 


A  PHASE  OF  SOCIAL  SCIENCE 

Published  in  "  The  Century,"  November,  1884 


A  PHASE  OF  SOCIAL  SCIENCE 


IN  a  striking  passage  in  his  "History  of  Eng- 
land" (vol.  i,  p.  332,  Am.  ed.),  Macaulay  calls 
attention  to  the  contrast  between  the  social  condi- 
tion of  England  in  the  seventeenth  century  and 
the  nineteenth.    He  says : 

There  is  scarcely  a  page  in  the  history  or  lighter  litera- 
ture of  the  seventeeuth  century  which  does  not  contain 
some  proof  that  our  ancestors  were  less  humane  than 
their  posterity.  The  discipline  of  workshops,  of  schools, 
of  private  famihes,  though  not  more  eflBcient  than  at 
present,  was  infinitely  harder.  Masters,  well  born  and 
bred,  were  in  the  habit  of  beating  their  servants.  Peda- 
gogues knew  no  way  of  imparting  knowledge  but  by 
beating  their  pupils.  Husbands  of  decent  station  were 
not  ashamed  to  beat  their  wives.  The  implacability  of 
hostile  factions  was  such  as  we  can  scarcely  conceive. 
Whigs  were  disposed  to  mui*mur  because  Strafford  was 
suffered  to  die  without  seeing  his  bowels  burned  before 
his  face.  ...  As  little  mercy  was  shown  by  the  populace 
to  sufferers  of  an  humbler  rank.  If  an  offender  was  put 
into  the  pUlory,  it  was  well  if  he  escaped  wTith  life  from 
the  shower  of  brick-bats  and  paving-stones.     If  he  was 

183 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

tied  to  the  cart's  tail,  the  crowd  pressed  round  him,  im- 
ploring the  hangman  to  give  it  the  fellow  well,  and  make 
him  howl.  Gentlemen  arranged  parties  of  pleasm-e  to 
Bridewell  on  court  days,  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the 
wretched  women  who  beat  hemp  there,  whipped.  A  man 
pressed  to  death  for  refusing  to  plead,  a  woman  burned 
for  coining,  excited  less  sympathy  than  is  now  felt  for  a 
galled  horse  or  an  over-driven  ox.  .  .  .  The  prisons  were 
hells  on  earth,  seminaries  of  every  crime  and  of  every 
disease.  At  the  assizes  the  lean  and  yellow  culprits 
brought  with  them  from  their  cells  an  atmosphere  of 
stench  and  pestilence  which  sometimes  avenged  them 
signally  on  bench,  bar,  and  jmy.  But  on  all  this  mis- 
ery society  looked  with  profound  indifference.  Nowhere 
could  be  found  that  sensitive  and  restless  compassion 
which  has  in  our  time  extended  a  powerful  protection  to 
the  factory  child,  to  the  negro  slave,  which  pries  into 
the  stores  and  water-casks  of  every  emigrant  ship,  which 
winches  at  every  lash  laid  on  the  back  of  a  drunken  sol- 
dier, which  will  not  suffer  the  thief  in  the  hulks  to  be 
ill-fed  or  over- worked,  and  which  has  repeatedly  endea- 
vored to  save  the  life  even  of  the  murderer. 

It  is  nearly  thirty  years  since  these  words  were 
written.  It  is  interesting  to  speculate  how  much 
more  strongly  and  strikingly  they  might  have 
been  emphasized  if  they  had  been  written  to-day. 
What  we  call  social  science,  or  the  study  which 
concerns  itself  with  the  elevation  of  men  in  their 
homes  and  in  their  social  and  municipal  relations, 
was  then  comparatively  in  its  infancy.  The  wide- 
spread activity  of  individuals  and  associations 
busying  themselves  with  the  condition  of  the  pau- 
per and  criminal  classes;  the  devotion  of  women 

184 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

of  wealth,  leisure,  and  social  refinement  to  the 
reform  and  improvement  of  our  jails  and  hospi- 
tals and  almshouses;  the  active  interest  and  ex- 
penditure of  capitalists  in  the  improvement  of 
the  homes  of  the  poor;  the  scientific  study  of 
questions  of  drainage  and  ventilation,  of  foods 
and  food  supply;  the  whole  subject  of  the  rights 
of  women  and  their  emancipation  from  restrictive 
and  oppressive  prejudices ;  the  mutual  obligations 
of  employer  and  employed,  with  the  closely  related 
questions  of  strikes  and  trades-unions,  cooperative 
building  and  manufacturing  schemes,  and  the  like ; 
the  societies  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  chil- 
dren and  for  the  better  provision  for  the  education 
and  recreation  of  the  poor,  the  laboring  classes, 
the  crippled,  the  blind  and  the  deaf  and  dumb  — 
all  these  manifold  forms  of  activity  in  the  interest 
of  the  advancement  and  elevation  of  society  are 
largely  the  product  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury. 

What  now  is  their  relation  to  Christian  ethics  % 
or,  to  put  the  question,  as  I  prefer  to  do,  in  a  more 
concrete  and  homely  way,  What  has  the  religion 
of  the  New  Testament  to  say  to  our  modern  social 
science  % 

Two  things,  it  seems  to  me,  it  has  to  say  with 
equal  emphasis  and  explicitness,  one  of  them  in 
the  way  of  warning  and  the  other  of  encourage- 
ment. 

And,  first,  in  the  way  of  warning.  The  moment 
that  men  begin  to  gi-apple  with  the  evils  which 
afflict  society,  they  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  or 

185 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

ignoring  the  everlasting  principle  of  personal  re- 
sponsibility. In  the  face  of  poverty,  disease,  un- 
employed labor,  intemperance,  and  kindred  forms 
of  human  wretchedness,  the  fii'st  impulse  of  a  hu- 
mane spirit  is  to  devise  some  means  of  relie^dng 
these  various  ills,  without  adequately  recognizing 
the  causes  which  have  produced  them.  Hence  we 
have  those  public  and  private  institutions  of  char- 
ity which  are  so  preeminently  the  characteristic  of 
our  own  generation.  No  sooner  does  the  cry  of 
want  arise  than  some  benevolent  hand  opens  the 
door  of  a  refuge  or  lodging-house,  where  men  and 
women  are  fed  and  housed  without  money  and 
without  price.  No  sooner  does  a  man  fall  behind 
in  the  strife  of  trade  or  the  professions  than  he 
turns  to  the  charitable  to  carry  him  over  the  hard 
times  until  some  rising  tide  of  prosperity  shall  fill 
the  channels  of  his  wonted  calling.  No  sooner 
does  an  unscrupulous  father  abandon  his  family, 
or  an  extravagant  mother  prefer  to  appropriate 
her  means  to  drink  or  dress  instead  of  spending 
them  in  the  decent  maintenance  of  her  children, 
than  some  institution  steps  forward  to  take  the 
custody  of  the  children  and  relieve  the  parents 
of  their  charge.  "  Don't  you  think  we  had  better 
send  such  a  one's  children  to  the  Home  for  the 
Friendless?"  said  a  warm-hearted  woman  to  a 
neighbor.  "  On  what  ground  ? "  was  asked.  "  Be- 
cause their  mother  neglects  them  so  habitually," 
was  the  answer,  as  though  it  would  be  wiser  to 
disband  a  family  than  to  educate  its  head  into  a 
wiser  and  more  Christian  recognition  of  her  duty 

1 86 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

to  her  own  offspring.  A  man  may  make  his  home 
a  hell  and  his  children  congenital  drunkards  and 
vagabonds,  and  the  most  efficient  method  of  deal- 
ing with  his  vices  which  we  seem  thus  far  to  have 
devised  is  to  send  his  family  to  the  poorhouse  and 
himself  to  the  inebriate  asylum.  Over  against 
every  form  of  thiif tlessness  and  prodigality  we 
erect  an  institution  to  interpose  between  the  in- 
dividual and  the  righteous  penalty  of  his  own  ex- 
travagance. It  is  the  bitterest  curse  of  the  phi- 
lanthropy of  om'  generation  that  it  has  created  a 
sentiment  among  the  poor,  the  reckless,  the  intem- 
perate, and  the  indolent,  that,  somehow  or  other, 
come  what  may,  they  will  be  provided  for. 

I  arraign  this  policy  on  the  ground  that  it  trav- 
erses the  plain  teaching  of  that  most  helpful  vol- 
ume which  has  ever  been  given  to  men,  and  which 
we  know  as  the  New  Testament.  I  open  the  pages 
of  that  volume  and  I  read:  "Whatsoever  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  reap."  I  open  them  again 
and  I  read :  "  He  that  provideth  not  for  his  house- 
hold is  worse  than  an  infidel."  And  again :  "  If 
any  man  wiU  not  work,  neither  shall  he  eat."  And 
yet  again :  "  If  thy  hand  or  thy  foot  offend  thee, 
cut  it  off  and  cast  it  from  thee."  I  find  the  great 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  setting  an  example  of  self- 
respecting  independence  which  is  at  once  an  in- 
spiration and  a  rebuke  to  all  subsequent  time,  by 
working  at  his  trade  as  a  tent-maker  with  his  own 
hands.  I  read  in  his  own  letter  to  the  chui'ch  at 
Ephesus :  "  Let  him  that  stole,  steal  no  more,  but 
rather  let  him  labor,  working  with  his  hands  the 

187 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

thing  which  is  good";  and  in  all  these  various 
passages  I  see  so  many  side-lights  throwing  into 
stronger  relief  the  gi^eat  principle  that  that  social 
compassion  is  neither  wise  nor  Christian  which 
lifts  the  burden  of  individual  obligation  or  in- 
terposes to  arrest  the  penalty  of  personal  unfaith- 
fulness. 

Nay,  more:  I  arraign  our  social  policy  on  an- 
other and  still  higher  ground.  A  Christian  social- 
ism must  needs  be  based  on  the  commandment, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  and  in 
its  practical  workings  it  will  think  more  of  the  in- 
fluence of  what  it  does  upon  its  brother  man  than 
upon  its  own  feelings.  But  our  ordinary  dealing 
with  the  social  problems  of  our  own  time  is  like 
that  of  a  weak  mother  who  will  not  chastise  her 
child  nor  suffer  him  to  be  chastised  because  of 
the  pain  which  it  causes  to  her  own  feelings.  It 
does  not  occur  to  her  that  such  a  course  of  con- 
duct is  inspired,  not  by  maternal  love,  but  by  per- 
sonal selfishness.  If  you  loved  your  child  you 
would  deal  with  him,  not  as  your  mere  feelings 
dictated,  but  as  his  highest  interests  demanded; 
and  even  so,  if  you  love  yom'  brother  man  you 
will  do  for  him,  not  what  he  wants  you  to  do  for 
him,  but  what  he  needs  to  have  done  for  him.  But 
we  have  cultivated  a  morbid  sentimentalism  in  re- 
gard to  individual  suffering  until  there  must  be  no 
form  of  misery  which  we  cannot  straightway  hustle 
out  of  sight  or  effusively  relieve.  It  is  enough  for 
us  that  a  sturdy  personage  sits  on  the  curbstone 
begging.    Where  did  he  come  from!    How  long 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

has  he  been  there?  What  is  the  truth  or  false- 
hood of  his  story  %  These  are  questions  for  which 
we  have  no  time  and  less  taste.  "  Here  is  a  half- 
dollar,  my  man !  A  plague  on  those  hard-hearted 
theorists  who  declaim  against  the  giving  of  doles 
in  the  street!  Do  you  say  that  you  want  more? 
Well,  then,  here  is  a  ticket  for  a  night's  lodging  or 
a  free  bed  in  the  Home  for  the  Homeless";  and, 
having  buttoned  up  our  pocket-books  once  more, 
we  pass  on  with  a  comfortable  sense  of  our  supe- 
rior benevolence.  Here,  again,  it  does  not  occur 
to  us  that  we  should  have  done  better  if  we  had 
merely  given  our  brother  a  kick  and  passed  on. 
Yes,  a  thousand  times  better!  For  a  kick  would 
have  been,  at  most,  merely  a  physical  indignity, 
whereas,  as  it  is,  we  have  subjected  this  fellow- 
creature  of  ours  to  the  keenest  moral  indignity; 
for  we  have  said  to  him,  by  an  act  far  more  elo- 
quently expressive  than  any  words:  "Morally  you 
are  already  on  the  way  to  that  most  abject  degra- 
dation, a  state  of  chronic  pauperism.  Well,  then, 
lie  there  where  you  are  in  the  gutter  and  rot.  I 
have  no  time  or  inclination  to  help  you  to  stand 
upon  your  own  feet.  It  is  easier  and  more  con- 
genial to  leave  you  where  you  are,  and  by  what  I 
may  do  for  you  to  encourage  you  to  stay  there." 
It  is  high  time  for  men  to  ask  the  question 
whether  this  is  or  is  not  substantially  the  teach- 
ing of  cm*  social  beneficence,  as  we  actually  see 
it  about  us. 

And  here,  as  I  believe,  enters  the  domain  of 
Christian  ethics.    There  is  much  of  human  suifer- 

189 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

ing,  ignorance,  and  poverty  which  is  the  fruit  of 
misfortune,  that  it  is  our  plain  duty  always  and 
everywhere  to  relieve.  There  is  much  more  which 
is  the  fruit  of  indolence  and  thriftlessness  and 
vice.  To  interfere  between  this  latter  and  its  pen- 
alty is  not,  and  never  was  meant  to  be,  the  province 
of  our  social  science ;  nor,  if  I  read  the  New  Testa- 
ment aright,  is  this  the  teaching  of  its  pages  or  of 
the  Master  himself.  "  Give  us  of  yom*  oil,"  cry  the 
improvident  and  foolish  \irgins  to  their  wise  and 
more  provident  companions,  and  according  to  the 
teaching  of  our  modern  socialism,  and  of  much 
of  our  modern  philanthropy,  the  answer  ought  to 
have  been:  "Certainly,  dear  sisters;  take  the  larger 
share,  and  so  learn  how  generous  we  can  be  to 
others  less  forecasting  than  ourselves";  but  in  fact 
the  answer  is :  "  Not  so ;  lest  there  be  not  enough 
for  us  and  you:  but  go  ye  .  .  .  and  })uy  for 
yourselves^ 

But  again,  the  mission  of  Christian  ethics  to  our 
modern  social  science  is  to  speak  not  only  a  word 
of  warning,  but  also  a  word  of  encoiu'agement. 
That  branch  of  science  has  concerned  itself  largely 
in  our  own  generation  with  the  relations  of  capital 
to  labor,  with  the  improvement  of  men's  homes 
and  streets,  of  prisons,  and  almshouses,  and  hospi- 
tals. One  of  the  most  encouraging  features  of  the 
social  progress  of  our  time  has  been  the  hearty 
and  often  generous  interest  which  landlords  and 
capitahsts,  men  of  science,  and  men  of  the  various 
professions,  have  shown  in  bringing  every  latest 
scientific  discovery  to  bear  upon  the  practical  eleva- 

190 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

tion  of  the  poor,  and  the  physical  and  intellectual 
improvement  of  the  less  favored.  The  immense 
sums  of  money  spent  for  placing  educational  ad- 
vantages within  the  reach  of  the  masses  who  spend 
their  lives  in  daily  toil,  and  the  sums,  scarcely  less 
vast,  which  in  our  mother-country,  if  not  in  our 
own,  have  been  spent  in  building  model  cottages 
and  tenements  and  even  factories  for  the  poor,  are  a 
demonstration  of  this.  But  in  all  this  expenditure 
of  money  and  wealth  there  is  often  involved  an 
experience  of  discouragement  which  it  is  idle  to 
ignore.  The  classes  who  are  most  benefited  by 
these  reforms  do  not  care  for  social  science.  Model 
dwellings  and  rules  of  hygiene  are  equally  distaste- 
ful and  uninteresting  to  them.  If  you  appeal  to 
them  to  conform  then*  Hves  to  wiser  rules  of  clean- 
liness, temperance,  frugality,  and  forecast,  too  often 
you  appeal  to  them  in  vain.  Essays  on  light  and 
drainage  and  ventilation  which  laboriously  you  cu'- 
culate  among  them,  are  left  unread.  Even  the  most 
elaborate  and  costly  schemes  for  their  advantage 
fail  of  any  practical  effect.  It  is  tolerably  well  as- 
certained, for  instance,  that  the  Peabody  lodging- 
houses  have  not  reached,  or  at  any  rate  have  not 
greatly  benefited,  the  class  for  whom  they  were 
designed.  These  have  shunned  homes  involving 
rules  of  decency,  cleanliness,  and  self-restraint, 
which  would  have  been  to  them  intolerable,  as 
they  would  have  shunned  a  prison ;  and  the  Pea- 
body  model  tenements  became  the  homes  of  the 
better  class  of  skilled  mechanics,  and  even  of  cler- 
gymen and  other  professional  men,  by  whom  they 

191 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

were  in  no  sense  needed.  In  other  words,  no  argu- 
ment of  the  science  of  sociology  by  itself  was 
strong  enough  efficiently  to  reach  the  class  to 
whom  it  was  addressed. 

But  when  social  reforms  have  allied  themselves 
to  the  spirit  and  motives  of  the  New  Testament, 
when  a  woman  like  Octavia  Hill  has  gone  into  the 
homes  of  the  poor  to  reform  the  evils  of  London 
tenements,  not  with  the  power  of  mere  money  or 
mere  organization,  or  merely  scientific  theories, 
but  with  the  power  of  personal  sympathy,  the  sit- 
uation has  been  wholly  changed.  The  transform- 
ing power  of  His  love  who  "  having  loved  His  own, 
loved  them  unto  the  end,"  has  transfused  the  spirit 
of  scientific  reform  with  the  spell  of  self-sacrificing 
and  Christ-like  enthusiasm.  It  has  taught  men  that 
highest  motive  for  cooperating  in  the  upbuilding  of 
a  higher  and  purer  social  law  and  life,  which  is  to 
be  found  in  the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  father- 
hood of  Grod.  It  has  quickened  the  brain  and  the 
hand  of  science  with  the  magic  spell  of  love.  It 
has  enlarged  the  vision  of  the  reformer  to  see  in 
human  society,  here  and  now,  the  type  and  pro- 
phecy of  that  diviner  society  yet  to  be.  And  so, 
when  men's  hearts  have  grown  cold,  and  their 
hands  weary,  with  what  has  seemed  so  often  a  fu- 
tile struggle,  it  has  bidden  them  lift  their  eyes  to 
One  who  gave  himself  for  his  brethren,  and  so 
has  taught  them  a  lesson  of  immortal  hope  and 
patience ! 

And  this  is  the  message  of  encouragement 
which  Christian  ethics  brings  to  our  social  science 

192 


A  Phase  of  Social  Science 

of  to-day.  How  shall  we  deal  with  these  ui'gent 
social  problems  of  the  hour, —  whether  they  con- 
cern the  reclaiming  of  our  fallen  brethren  and  sis- 
ters here  at  our  very  side,  or  our  fellow-creature, 
the  despised  Chinaman,  who  has  found  his  way  to 
our  far-off  Pacific  coast, —  save  as  we  look  at  each 
and  every  one  of  them  in  the  light  that  streams 
from  the  cross  of  One  who  gave  himself  to  lift  men 
wp  f  In  such  a  spirit  is  the  mighty  influence  that 
is  to  reach  and  redeem  society;  and  when  our 
whole  social  philosophy  is  interpenetrated  and  sat- 
urated with  that  spirit,  then  and  not  till  then  shall 
our  social  problems  find  their  final  solution. 

And  therefore,  when  we  find  ourselves  discour- 
aged—  as  who  of  us  does  not? — with  the  slowness 
of  that  progress  which  any  social  reform  makes 
among  us, — when  we  face  the  obduracy,  the  prej- 
udice, the  dense  and  stolid  ignorance,  which  al- 
most any  and  every  movement  in  the  interests  of 
a  sounder  social  science  is  sure  to  encounter, — 
this  becomes  at  once  our  loftiest  motive  and  our 
most  lasting  encouragement.  We  are  not  working 
for  an  hour  or  a  day;  we  are  not  striving  for  the 
advance  of  a  race  which  was  born  yesterday  and 
will  perish  to-morrow.  Our  faith  in  social  pro- 
gress is  at  once  part  and  prophecy  of  a  grander 
future.  Over  all  that  we  do  to  make  life  cleaner 
and  wiser  and  healthier,  moves  the  plan  of  Him 
whose  will  it  is  to  make  His  children  immortal. 
And  our  social  science  will  be  a  spell  of  power  and 
blessing  among  men  just  in  so  far  as  it  is  trans- 
fused by  His  spirit  and  ennobled  by  His  love. 


13 


193 


NOBILITY  IN   BUSINESS 

ADDRESS 

Memorial  of  Anthony  J.  Drexel,  delivered  at  the  Drexel  Institute, 
Philadelphia,  January  20,  1894 


NOBILITY  IN  BUSINESS 


THE  occasion  which  assembles  us  to-day  is  at 
once  significant  and  unique.  A  citizen  of  Phil- 
adelphia who,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  never  held 
political  office  and  never  challenged  public  atten- 
tion, dies  in  a  foreign  land  after  a  life  of  sixty-six 
years  spent  in  this  community  in  the  pursuit  of 
his  ordinary  business.  Of  engaging  personal  quali- 
ties and  of  honorable  record  as  a  banker,  he  is 
moui'ned  by  his  friends  and  fellow-citizens  and 
borne  to  his  rest  amid  the  various  tributes  of  af- 
fection and  respect.  Such  men,  though  not  as 
common  as  we  might  wish,  are  not  unknown 
among  you;  and  the  career  which  I  have  thus 
briefly  outlined  could  hardly  be  regarded,  viewed 
from  customary  standpoints,  as  in  any  way  excep- 
tional or  phenomenal.  There  have  been  many 
such  men  in  the  history  of  every  commercial  com- 
munity, and  we  are  glad  to  honor  their  virtues  and 
to  own  their  beneficent  influence.  And  then  the 
current  rushes  on.  The  tide  of  our  modern  life  is 
so  vast  in  its  volume,  so  rapid  in  its  pace,  so  irre- 

13*  197 


Nobility  in  Business 

sistible  in  its  momentum,  that  we  cannot  long  ar- 
rest it,  nor  ourselves.  New  tasks  command  us ; 
new  emergencies  challenge  us ;  a  new  day,  with  its 
own  large  anxieties,  dawns  upon  the  night  of  our 
grief,  and  we  stanch  the  tears  that  blur  the  eager 
vision,  striving  the  more  clearly  to  discern  its  way 
amid  the  distracting  intricacies  of  our  modern  life, 
and  hasten  on. 

But  it  has  not  been  so  here.  The  larger  part  of 
a  year  has  gone  since  there  flashed  beneath  the 
Atlantic  that  sharp  electric  shock  which  told  us 
that  a  friend  had  ceased  to  breathe,  and  we  have 
not  forgotten  him,  nor  can  we.  I  do  not  know 
how  it  may  be  with  most  of  you,  but  there  must 
be  a  good  many  men  and  women  here  to  whom 
Philadelphia  will  never  be  quite  the  same  place 
that  it  was  a  year  ago. 

We  wake,  we  rise ;  from  end  to  end 
Of  aU  the  landscape  underneath 
We  find  no  place  that  does  not  breathe 

Some  gracious  memory  of  our  friend. 

Out  of  a  few  lives  has  gone  that  which,  because 
it  was  so  dear  and  close,  will  leave  them  stricken 
and  bereaved  forever.  Yes,  but  beside  this,  which 
comes  to  all  of  us  when  sorrow  comes,  and  has 
taken  from  us  that  which  is  most  dear  and  pre- 
cious, out  of  that  larger  life  which  makes  the  life 
of  a  community,  a  State,  a  nation,  something  has 
gone  which  leaves  a  gap  behind,  wide  and  deep 
and  ineffaceable.  A  very  striking  sketch  of  our 
departed  friend,  by  one  of  your   own   citizens, 

198 


Nobility  in  Business 

depicted,  at  the  time  of  his  departure,  what,  not 
extravagantly,  it  called  his  regal  traits.  He  had 
them.  He  was  a  large  pattern  of  a  man.  He  ruled 
in  that  financial  realm  in  which  he  was  so  potent 
a  personality  by  virtue  of  a  kingly  right  of  his 
kingly  gifts.  Anywhere,  under  any  conditions, 
his  would  have  been  a  commanding  mind,  and  his 
influence  a  commanding  influence.  Reverently  be 
it  said,  God  made  him  so ;  and  just  because  his  was 
so  dominant  and  so  exceptional  a  personality,  you 
here  have  not  been  able  to  forget  him.  This  occa- 
sion, occurring  so  many  months  after  his  departure, 
finds  its  final  explanation  in  himself.  No  simu- 
lated sorrow  has  produced  it.  No  labored  prepa- 
ration has  ripened  it.  It  simply  could  not  be  other- 
wise. We  could  not  let  Anthony  Drexel  go  away 
without  coming  together  as  we  have  come  this  af- 
ternoon, to  speak  to  one  another  of  his  knightly 
and  noble  presence,  and  to  garner  here  the  im- 
pressions of  his  strong  and  symmetrical  manhood. 
For,  in  the  first  place,  Mr.  Drexel  was  built  upon 
large  lines  intellectually.  The  world  of  our  mod- 
ern life  has  its  own  types  of  gi-eatness,  which  are 
a  legitimate  product  of  the  age  which  has  pro- 
duced them.  It  is  the  fashion,  I  know,  in  some 
quarters  to  disparage  them  because  they  are  not 
the  types  which,  in  other  ages,  revealed  greatness, 
and  because  they  are  neither  picturesque,  nor  he- 
roic, nor  scholastic.  There  have  been  ages,  we  are 
told,  which  produced  not  wealth,  nor  luxury,  nor 
railways,  but  men.  There  have  been  ages  which 
built  not  canals,  nor  steamships,  nor  commercial 

199 


Nobility  in  Business 

warehouses,  but  soldiers  and  States  and  civiliza- 
tions. We  are  all  familiar  with  Mr.  Ruskin's  bit- 
ing sarcasms  upon  our  modern  life,  which  finds  its 
worst  and  most  vulgar  illustration,  as  he  tells  us, 
in  our  own  America.  And  this  sort  of  thing  has 
been  reiterated  so  often,  with  such  fine  and  sting- 
ing scorn,  and  with  such  infrequent  challenge  or 
contradiction,  that  many  of  us  have  come  to  be- 
lieve it.  But  of  all  verbiage  that  calls  itself  phil- 
osophic criticism,  it  is  the  thinnest  and  cheapest 
that  ever  deceived  unthinking  souls,  and  it  is  high 
time  that  somebody  said  so. 

It  is  high  time  that,  in  an  age  which  is  wont  so 
often  to  disparage  its  best  energies  and  to  belittle 
its  own  aims,  we  should  understand  their  true  sig- 
nificance and  recognize  their  ultimate  tendency. 
In  what  we  are  wont  to  call  the  chivalric  or  heroic 
ages,  the  best  energies  of  men  were  devoted  to 
warfare,  simply  because  the  world  was  as  yet  so 
poorly  educated  that  it  had  not  learned  that  the 
ends  for  which  a  great  many  honorable  wars  were 
waged  might  have  been  as  effectually  attained  in 
another  and  less  cruel  way.  Again,  in  ages  when 
men,  as  in  England,  won  glory  and  honor  and 
immortality  in  struggles  for  Magna  Charta,  their 
deeds  and  their  conceptions  seem  so  noble  and  so 
splendid  because  they  stand  out  upon  so  dark  a 
background  of  popular  ignorance  and  servitude. 
But  to-day  our  best  men  use  their  best  powers  for 
other  ends,  because  these  ends,  though  they  may 
seem,  superficially,  so  often  merely  commercial 
and  sordid,  are,  after  all,  the  ends  of  our  advauc- 

200 


Nobility  in  Business 

ing  civilization,  and  with  it  an  advancing  Christ. 
"  Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and  every  moun- 
tain .  .  .  shall  be  made  low :  .  .  .  the  crooked  shall 
be  made  straight,  and  the  rough  places  plain,"  cries 
John  the  Baptist  in  the  wilderness ;  "  and  all  flesh 
shall  see  the  salvation  of  God!"  Who  has  not 
thought  of  these  words  as  he  has  seen  in  om*  Wes- 
tern wildernesses  the  mighty  conquests  of  our 
modern  engineering?  The  Romans  built  their 
roads  for  their  armies ;  but  after  the  armies  came 
the  apostles  bringing  to  heathendom  the  heavenly 
learning  of  the  cross. 

And  so  it  has  been  in  the  history  of  our  modern 
enterprise,  and  of  the  genius  that  has  inspired 
and  promoted  it.  A  great  engineer  conceives  a 
great  achievement,  but  it  is  only  a  great  financier 
who  makes  it  possible.  And  it  is  this  gift,  that 
penetrating  forecast  which  makes  man,  at  his 
highest  estate,  what  Shakspere  calls  him,  "  a  being 
of  large  discourse,  looking  before  and  after,"  which 
ranks,  as  I  maintain,  and  not  unworthily,  beside 
the  noblest  achievements  of  soldier,  or  statesman, 
or  scholar.  One  lifts  his  eye  from  the  narrow 
range  of  his  domestic  environment,  and  casts  it 
over  that  vast  area  which  makes  our  American 
continent,  and  whose  has  been  the  transforma- 
tion ?  The  courage  of  the  pioneer,  the  heroism  of 
the  emigrant,  the  daring  of  the  explorer?  Yes; 
but  behind  all  these,  the  calm  and  far-seeing  mind 
holding  in  its  grasp  the  resources  of  two  hemi- 
spheres, who  can  see  what  currents  may  be  turned 
into   these   newly   opened   channels,   and   how  a 

20 1 


Nobility  in  Business 

statesmanlike  energy  can  widen  and  deepen  them 
for  the  largest  good. 

Some  one  has  said  that  we  have  no  more  states- 
men because  they  have  all  become  bankers  and 
raihoad  presidents.  May  it  not  be  because  it  is 
bankers  and  raikoad  presidents  which  our  present 
emergency  demands,  even  more  than  it  demands 
legislation.  There  are  some  of  us  who  think  that 
if  we  could  have  a  little  less  of  that,  we  should  be 
all  the  better  for  it ;  and  if  to  others  it  seems  com- 
mon and  vulgar  for  a  man  to  be  concerned  with 
currency  and  transportation,  rather  than  with 
ideas  and  the  forces  which  engender  them,  it  may 
be  well  to  remember  that  among  these  forces  that 
which  puts  men  in  circulation,  by  challenging  en- 
terprise and  promoting  travel  and  traffic,  is  no  less 
necessary  than  ideas  themselves  —  nay,  that  there 
can  be  no  ideas  as  quickening  and  elevating  forces 
without  that  which  rewards  labor  and  feeds  hun- 
ger, whether  of  the  mind  or  the  body,  and  pays  en- 
terprise, and  builds  roads  and  factories  and  ships 
and  cities  —  which  is  money. 

I  beUeve  that  Mr.  Drexel  discerned  this  very 
clearly.  I  believe  that  he  came  very  early  to  see  a 
long  way  beyond  his  particular  calling  or  busi- 
ness, into  that  larger  realm  of  commerce  and 
j&nance  by  which  the  whole  round  world  is  bound 
together.  I  believe  that  he  early  came  to  recog- 
nize that  wealth  was  one  of  the  great  forces  —  not 
the  greatest  force  nor  the  only  one,  but  still  a 
great  force  which  had  in  itself,  indeed,  no  moral  or 
intellectual  quality  any  more  than  steam  or  elec- 

202 


Nobility  in  Bminess 

tricity,  on  the  one  hand,  or  language  and  culture, 
on  the  other,  have  a  moral  or  intellectual  quality, 
but  a  force  which,  hke  either  of  these  or  any  other 
great  force,  might  be  accumulated  or  stored,  and 
used  for  great  ends  and  in  a  gi-eat  way.  I  believe 
that  Mr.  Drexel  early  began  to  outgi'ow  the  nar- 
rower limitations  of  that  business  in  which  I  first 
knew  him,  and  to  recognize  the  larger  opportuni- 
ties and  the  wider  relations  of  his  calling  as  a 
banker,  and  when  he  did,  to  use  them  with  a  pre- 
eminent wisdom  and  in  a  great  way.  I  believe 
that  in  so  doing  he  was  a  most  potential  factor  in 
the  development  of  our  American  resources  and 
opportunities,  and  I  venture  to  think  that  in  doing 
this  he  was  doing  a  work  as  essentially  great  in  its 
proportions  and  influence  as  if  he  had  overrun 
western  Africa  with  a  conquering  army,  or  negoti- 
ated a  treaty  with  Spain  and  secured  to  us  the 
possession  of  one  of  the  West  India  Islands. 

But  Mr.  Drexel's  was  no  less  a  character  of 
distinct  and  unusual  eminence  morally.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  significant  emphasis  with  which 
my  dear  friend,  your  fellow-citizen  (in  appointing 
whom  as  ambassador  to  Italy  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  I  venture  to  think,  has  honored 
himself  scarcely  less  than  he  has  honored  his  min- 
ister) —  I  shall  never  forget,  I  say,  the  significant 
emphasis  with  which,  when  we  dedicated  this 
noble  building,  Mr.  MacVeagh  exclaimed  (I  do  not 
profess  to  give  his  exact  words),  referring  to  Mr. 
Drexel's  princely  gifts,  first  of  the  building  and 
then  of  the  endowment :  "  And  not  the  least  de- 

203 


NoUlity  in  Business 

lightful  feature  of  this  munificent  benefaction  is 
that  it  is  all  clean  moneys    What  a  large  and  seri- 
ous significance  lay  behind  that  homely  and  col- 
loquial phrase ! 
Wrote  the  friend  who  knew  him  best : 

By  no  act  of  his  life  did  he  take  advantage  of  the 
misfortunes,  difficulties,  or  embarrassments  of  any  man 
or  men,  or  corporations  even,  which  are  said  to  have 
no  souls,  to  enhance  his  own  fortune.  He  did  not  drive 
sharp  bargains ;  he  did  not  profit  by  the  hard  necessities 
of  others ;  he  did  not  exact  from  those  in  his  employ  ex- 
cessive tasks  and  give  them  inadequate  pay.  He  was 
a  lenient,  patient,  hberal  creditor,  a  generous  employer, 
considerate  of,  and  sympathetic  with,  every  one  who 
worked  for  him. 

I  do  not  think  there  could  well  be  higher  praise 
than  that,  and  I  have  yet  to  hear  it  challenged. 
But  consider  for  a  moment  how  much  that  is 
which  it  means.  We  talk  of  the  white  heat  of 
those  fiery  furnaces  that  tried  the  souls  of  martyrs 
and  heroes  of  the  elder  time.  Ah !  they  are  wait- 
ing for  many  a  man,  as  he  goes  down-town  to 
his  business,  almost  every  day  of  his  life.  The 
rest  of  us  who  live  outside  of  them  can  never 
know  how  fierce  are  the  competitions,  how  tre- 
mendous the  strain,  how  all  but  irresistible  the 
temptation  to  seize,  as  all  in  an  instant,  it  may 
be,  there  flashes  upon  us  some  unfair  advan- 
tage which  another's  action  or  want  of  action  in 
some  unguarded  moment  has  betrayed  to  us.  We 
can  never  quite  know  the  subtle  and  benumbing 

204 


Nobility  in  Business 

power  of  that  atmosphere  of  craft  and  artifice,  of 
dubious  methods  and  more  than  doubtful  maxims, 
in  which  many  men  are  called  to  work  who  live  in 
the  world  of  business.  We  can  never  quite  under- 
stand how,  unconsciously,  one's  own  standards  of 
integrity  may  be  debilitated  and  deteriorated  by 
the  example  of  those  whom  his  fellows  applaud, 
whom  the  law  protects,  and  whom  the  community, 
it  may  be,  delights  to  honor.  To  hold  one's  self 
erect  when  all  these  influences  conspire  to  make  a 
man  stoop  to  actions  which  are  mean  or  equivocal 
—  to  keep  one's  scrupulous  integrity  unstained  or 
untarnished  —  this  is  a  task  so  great  that  only 
they  who  can  measure  it  by  experience  can  justly 
honor  it.  But  this  was  the  integrity  of  Anthony 
Drexel,  this  was  the  moral  history  of  his  financial 
career. 

But  not  the  whole  of  it.  Great  as  he  was  in 
this,  if  he  had  been  noble  only  in  this  way,  it 
would  have  been,  after  all,  but  a  negative  nobility. 
There  have  been  other  men  of  whom  all  this  could 
be  said,  and,  thank  Grod,  not  a  few  of  them.  But 
it  is  a  painful  characteristic,  too  often,  of  a  scrupu- 
lous business  integrity,  that  it  stops  just  at  this 
point.  It  can  be  just,  but  it  cannot  be  magnani- 
mous. It  can  be  scrupulous,  but  it  cannot  be 
generous.  It  can  pay  its  own  debts,  and  "  exact 
no  more  than  that  which  is  appointed,"  but  it  can- 
not discern  that  in  the  realm  of  morals  that  alone 
is  true  nobility  of  character  and  conduct  which 
goes  beyond  the  bald  and  dry  equities,  and  reaches 
out  and  up  into  the  realm  of  a  large  magnanimity. 

205 


Nobility  in  Business 

It  is  this  in  Mr.  Drexel's  history  which  gives  to 
his  business  career  its  finest  quahty  of  moral  noble- 
ness. Says  the  friend  from  whom  I  have  akeady 
quoted : 

Men  of  thought  and  conscience,  at  the  beginning  of 
theu'  career,  commonly  adopt  a  inile  by  which  theh  steps 
are  directed.  Anthony  J.  Drexel  adopted  one,  and  until 
death  removed  him  from  the  busy,  helpful  path  that  he 
had  trod  so  long  in  the  world  of  business,  it  was  his  sole 
guiding  principle  in  the  important  and  multitudinous 
affairs  with  which  he  had  to  do.  That  rule  was :  "  Do 
unto  others  as  you  would  have  others  do  unto  you."  The 
transactions  of  his  banks,  especially  during  the  more  re- 
cent years  of  their  activity,  were  largely  with  govern- 
ments—  national,  State,  municipal;  with  great  corpora- 
tions, raih'oads,  banks,  and  other  financial  institutions,  as 
weU  as  with  fii*ms  and  indi\dduals  that  came  to  rely  upon 
Mr.  Drexel  as  a  man  of  unusual  sagacity  and  unques- 
tionable and  unquestioned  honor.  If  the  records  of  this 
house  were  made  pubhc,  it  would  be  perceived  how  often 
it  had  been  the  prop  of  public  and  private  credit,  the  sus- 
tainer  of  institutions,  corjsorations,  firms,  and  persons,  to 
whom  it  gave  assistance  when  their  ruin  had  been  other- 
wise ine\dtable. 

That  is  what  I  mean  by  moral  nobleness  in  busi- 
ness— a  kind  of  financial  statesmanship  touched 
with  the  finest  sensibility,  and  lifted  to  the  most 
exalted  conception  of  great  responsibilities  and 
opportunities.  There  is  no  test  of  character  at 
once  so  searching  and  so  final  as  the  possession, 
in  whatever  kind,  of  great  power.  There  are 
many  men  who  have    stood  all    ordinary  temp- 

206 


Nobility  in  Business 

tations,  but  have  succumbed  at  last  to  that. 
"  Cast  thyself  down ! "  cries  the  tempter  to  some 
one  lifted  to  lofty  and  dizzy  eminence;  and  too 
often  the  poor  brain,  drunk  with  its  large  conceit, 
stoops  to  the  ignoble  deed  just  because  it  can. 
But  here  was  a  man  who,  holding  a  great  power, 
wielded  it  for  the  greatest  good ;  who  held  up  the 
weak,  who  sustained  the  public  credit,  who  be- 
friended tottering  fortunes  and  enterprises,  who 
put  hfe  beneath  the  very  ribs  of  death  and  set  the 
corpse  upon  its  feet  again  —  and  all  this  in  a  fash- 
ion of  such  modest  and  unobtrusive  naturalness,  if 
I  may  say  so,  that  we  who  saw  him  or  knew  of  his 
doing  these  things  never  saw  how  gi-eat  they  were 
until  he  himself  was  taken  away  from  us  and  we 
beheld  them  in  their  true  light. 

And  thus  it  was  that  Mr.  Drexel  became,  in  this 
community  not  only,  but  in  two  hemispheres,  a 
strong  and  beneficent  moral  force.  Every  honest 
enterprise  was  stronger  because  it  knew  it  could 
count  upon  his  sympathy.  Every  equivocal  and 
dubious  enterprise,  every  shrewd  and  unscrupu- 
lous man,  was  weaker  because  of  the  necessity 
of  reckoning  with  his  unbending  honesty  and  his 
uncompromising  equity.  Knaves  dreaded  his 
searching  eye,  and  knavish  undertakings  were  the 
weaker  because  he  lived  to  detect  and  designate 
them.  This  was  his  moral  power,  and  men  felt 
it  everywhere  with  unceasing  force  all  the  way  to 
the  end. 

But  greater  than  intellectual  or  even  moral  no- 
bleness is  that  thing  which  we  call  f  amiharly  gi^eat- 

207 


Nobility  in  Business 

heartedness,  even  as  an  apostle  has  declared  that 
"charity"  or  love  is  the  greatest.  In  one  aspect 
of  it,  indeed,  this  quality  may  be  said  to  be  only 
moral  greatness  in  action;  but  in  another  and  truer 
aspect  it  might  more  truly  be  described  as  a  high 
moral  purpose  inspired  and  so  transformed  by  a 
gracious  affection. 

And  of  this  Mr.  Drexel's  life  was  a  singularly  re- 
splendent illustration.  There  came  to  him,  as  life 
went  on,  a  great  widening  of  vision;  and  there 
came  along  with  this  what  too  often  does  not  ac- 
company it,  a  steady  enlargement  of  the  scope  and 
character  of  his  sympathies  and  his  beneficence. 
Let  me  explain  what  I  mean  by  this  somewhat 
vague  language,  and  indulge  me  for  a  moment  in 
the  personal  reminiscence  which  it  involves. 

When  I  first  knew  Mr.  Drexel  I  was  myself  a 
lad  in  a  counting-room  in  this  city,  whose  duty, 
among  other  things,  it  was  to  take  to  the  office  of 
a  broker  in  Third  street  the  uncurrent  money  re- 
ceived by  the  house  whose  clerk  I  was.  Though 
the  house  of  Drexel  &  Sons,  as  I  think  it  was  then 
styled,  was  already  known  as  an  enterprising  and 
successful  firm,  I  do  not  beUeve  that  at  that  time 
or  any  other  those  who  composed  it  would  have 
claimed  that  it  then  stood  for  any  large  influence 
or  commanding  leadership  in  the  world  of  finance. 
All  that  came  later,  and  with  a  steady  and  cumu- 
lative growth,  and  it  came  because  of  the  growth 
of  that  controlling  mind  whose  loss  we  are  here 
to-day  to  mourn,  and  whose  gifts  we  are  assembled 
to  honor.    There  are  two  types  of  intellect  in  busi- 

208 


Nobility  in  Business 

ness,  as  in  letters,  or  art,  or  anywhere  else.  The 
one  is  that  which  early  breaks  upon  us  with  high 
promise,  but  which  never  fulfils  that  promise. 
We  say  of  some  man  at  twenty-five  or  thirty,  "  He 
will  make  his  mark  —  he  has  a  great  f utui-e  before 
him."  "  Grive  him  ten  or  fifteen  years,  and  he  will 
be  found  among  the  leaders  of  his  daj^"  But  he 
never  is.  His  fii*st  promise  is,  substantially,  his 
final  achievement.  His  youthful  excellence  is  the 
high  "  C  "  in  the  tonic  scale  of  performance  beyond 
which  he  never  climbs.  At  thirty-five  or  forty  we 
begin  to  doubt  about  him.  At  fifty  we  accept  him 
as  an  excellent  specimen  of  respectable  mediocrity, 
and  dismiss  him  from  the  realm  of  our  greater 
expectations. 

But  there  are  other  men  who  begin,  it  may  be, 
with  far  less  promise,  but  who,  when  the  time 
comes,  fit  theu'  achievements  to  an  opportunity 
as  a  builder  lifts  the  steel  frame  of  some  mighty 
structure,  when  the  foundations  are  ready,  story 
by  story,  to  the  lofty  and  dominant  peak  and  pin- 
nacle of  the  whole.  We  had  said  of  our  friend: 
"  He  is  a  good  fellow,  a  clever  man  of  business,  a 
capable  lawyer  or  merchant,"  but  one  day  he  steps 
a  little  apart  and  above  the  great  majority.  The 
task,  the  crisis,  the  burden  comes,  and,  somehow, 
the  brain  seems  to  gi'eaten  and  the  shoulders  to 
broaden,  till  at  last  we  see  in  this  modest  and  un- 
pretentious neighbor  a  man  of  large  capabilities,  of 
dominant  force,  "  of  light  and  leading."  Yes,  best 
of  all,  of  light  and  leading  in  brightest  ministries 
and  noblest  service.  For  this,  as  I  have  striven  to 
1*  209 


Nobility  in  Business 

indicate,  was  the  crowning  glory  of  Mr.  Drexel's 
career.  There  have  been  men  of  his  class  and  call- 
ing who  rose  from  modest  beginnings  to  be  finan- 
cial potencies  of  foremost  magnitude.  But  they 
never  became  anything  more.  Having  taught  the 
world  how  to  make  money,  they  never  taught 
other  men  how  to  use  it.  Having  illustrated  the 
highest  order  of  ability  in  organization  and  ac- 
cumulation, they  have  been  able  to  give  to  the 
world  only  the  feeblest  and,  too  often,  the  most 
unworthy  illustration  of  the  much  higher  art  of  its 
beneficent  distribution. 

And  here  it  is  that  Mr.  Drexel's  career  affords, 
as  I  venture  to  think,  so  fine  and  high  an  illustra- 
tion of  what  I  have  called  a  truly  great  benefi- 
cence. From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his 
career  he  was  indeed  a  man  who  adorned  his  life, 
as  have  some  others  of  his  associates  who  are  with 
us  to-day,  with  an  unceasing  stream  of  private 
and  personal  munificence  which  made  it  true  of 
him,  as  of  them,  that  "  when  the  ear  heard  him  it 
blessed  him,  and  when  the  eye  saw  him  it  gave 
witness  to  him."  Of  all  the  men  whom  you  to 
whom  I  speak  have  known,  I  venture  to  say  that 
no  one  was  more  free  from  the  poor  infirmity  that 
exercises  its  charity  for  advertising  purposes.  No 
one  but  God  and  they  whom  he  helped  and  suc- 
cored will  ever  know  how  wide  and  constant,  how 
discriminating  and  sympathetic,  was  the  reach  of 
his  secret  benefactions.  But  amid  all  these,  and, 
better  still,  amid  all  the  pressure  of  the  vast  inter- 
ests with  which  in  so  many  ways  he  was  charged, 

210 


Nobility  in  Business 

he  had  time  and  thought,  and  steadfast  and  un- 
dannted  purpose,  for  the  great  and  monumental 
work  within  whose  porches  we  are  now  assembled. 
How  cai'efully  and  intelligently  it  was  conceived, 
how  steadily  but  deliberately  it  was  matured,  how 
thoroughly  and  comprehensively  it  was  organized, 
you,  his  fellow-citizens,  well  know.  He  honored 
me  —  doubtless  he  distinguished  many  others  with 
the  same  mark  of  confidence  —  by  asking  more 
than  once  for  the  help  of  such  counsel  as  I  could 
give  him.  He  brooded  over  this  large  plan,  he 
considered  each  separate  class  of  those  whose 
higher  education  he  had  in  mind,  and  strove  to 
understand  both  them  and  their  best  wants.  He 
selected  his  fellow-counselors  with  equal  pru- 
dence and  wisdom,  and  when  all  this  preliminary 
work  was  done,  with  singular  wisdom  he  placed  at 
the  head  of  it  one  whose  presence  shall  not  re- 
strain me  from  reminding  you  of  the  rare  and 
keen  delight  with  which  in  this  place,  not  a  great 
while  ago,  we  listened  to  his  inaugural  address  as 
the  president  of  this  Institute,  and  whose  eminent 
and  varied  ability  in  its  administration  has  already 
abundantly  demonstrated  the  characteristic  dis- 
cernment of  him  who,  most  of  all,  chose  him. 

And  thus  it  was  that  our  friend,  by  that  final 
munificence  of  his  munificent  life,  gave  to  his  fel- 
low-citizens and  his  fellow-men  everywhere  the 
final  and  most  characteristic  disclosure  of  the 
gi-eatness  of  a  princely  heart. 

I  may  not  venture  here  to  follow  him  into  the 
privacy  of  his  personal  friendships,  nor  into  the 

211 


Nobility  in  Business 

innermost  sanctity  of  his  domestic  life.  Others 
who  had  a  better  right  to  speak  of  these  have 
done  so  with  a  delicacy  and  tenderness  which 
have  touched  us  all.  But  I  may  speak  of  what  all 
men  who  knew  Mr.  Drexel  knew  and  delighted  in 
—  his  especial  and  most  engaging  charm  of  pres- 
ence and  bearing,  the  perfect  flower  of  a  refine- 
ment and  modesty  so  sensitive,  and  a  courtesy  so 
invariable,  that  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 
could  ever  be  found  wanting.  The  picture  of  his 
personal  friendships,  and  of  one,  preeminently, 
with  another  public-spirited  fellow-citizen  whom 
we  all  love  and  honor  —  could  there  have  been 
anything  more  charming  and  engaging  than  this  ? 
Ah!  how  could  we  help  loving  him  —  nay,  how 
steadfastly  we  love  him  still ! 

And  so  I  am  here  this  afternoon  to  lay  this 
wreath,  not  so  much  of  lam'el  as  of  violets,  upon 
his  new-made  grave.  Do  I  hear  some  one  say 
that  the  act  is  not  unfitting,  but  that  he  who  has 
been  charged  with  it  is  none  the  less  an  intruder  f 
Do  I  hear  some  one  say,  "  This  was  our  friend 
and  helper  and  son,  a  native  of  our  city  —  'no 
mean  city,'  as  he  himself  justly  and  proudly  ac- 
counted it  —  all  his  life  long"?  Do  I  hear  some 
other  say,  "There  was  no  need  to  import  into 
this  occasion  a  strange  voice  and  presence  to 
speak  the  eulogy  that  belonged  to  the  hour,  when 
we  have  teachers  and  orators  of  om'  own  at  once 
more  gifted  and  more  esteemed"?  Believe  me, 
there  is  no  one  among  you  all  who  can  feel  all 
this  more  keenly  than  I  do.    But  when  you  claim 

212 


Nobility  in  Business 

for  our  dead  friend  that  he  was  youi's  alone,  then, 
verily,  I  must  take  issue  with  you.  We  have  all 
our  municipal,  or  we  have  our  national,  rivaMes 
and  jealousies.  Boston  girds  at  New  York.  New 
York  indulges  in  its  well-worn  jests  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Philadelphia;  and  Chicago,  in  her  ves- 
ture of  new  and  resplendent  triumph,  cherishes  a 
fine  and  somewhat  contemptuous  condescension 
for  all  of  us.  But  when  Chicago,  confronted  by  a 
colossal  enterprise,  challenged  by  tremendous  diffi- 
culties, staggered  by  overwhelming  and  utterly  un- 
expected perplexities,  rises  steadily  and  unfalter- 
ingly to  her  gi^eat  task,  and  accomplishes  it  at 
last  with  matchless  and  superb  success,  then  no 
petty  rivalries  can  withhold  us,  nor  any  alien  in- 
terests restrain  us,  from  lifting  our  proud  and 
grateful  shout  of  praise  and  honor  to  her,  our  sis- 
ter, who  has  done  so  well  and  nobly.  And  so 
here,  and  to-day. 

Our  brother  whom  we  are  here  to  recall  did  not 
belong  alone  to  you!  Great  as  Philadelphia  is, — 
and  if  I  forget  the  city  of  my  boyhood  and  my 
youth,  may  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my 
mouth !  —  he  was  too  great  for  that.  Such  a  man 
as  he  is  the  property  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  and 
that  not  alone  because  his  business  interests  were 
almost  as  much  identified  with  us  of  New  York  as 
with  you  of  Pennsylvania  —  not  alone  because  it 
was  our  happy  privilege  to  enjoy  his  friendship 
and  some  measure  of  his  confidence  and  regard  as 
well  as  you  —  not  alone  because  he  was  associated 
with  men,  and  with  one  especially  who  has  done 
1**  213 


Nobility  in  Business 

for  the  city  in  which  I  live  very  much  what  Mr. 
Drexel  has  done  for  yours:  but  because,  most  of 
all,  he  was  the  fine  fruitage  of  our  best  American 
manhood,  and  of  the  ideas  which  made  the 
founders  of  this  nation  great ;  because  of  this  it  is 
that  we  are  here  to  thank  Grod  that  he  lived,  and 
to  bless  the  goodness  of  Him  whose  reverent  and 
faithful  disciple  he  was  through  a  long  and  consis- 
tent career,  that  he  conceived,  that  he  planned,  that 
he  wrought,  that  he  gave  —  best  of  all,  that  in  his 
modest  and  beautiful  manhood  he  was. 

These  are  times  of  tremendous  financial  shrink- 
age, we  are  told.  But  whatever  else  has  shrunk, 
the  stately  and  noble  proportions  of  this  Institute 
have  not  shrunken  a  hair!  It  is  an  impressive 
and  significant  illustration  as  to  a  good  place  for 
a  sound  and  enduring  investment,  and  most  of 
all  is  it  an  illustration  no  less  significant  and  im- 
pressive of  the  name  and  the  fame  of  him  whom 
to-day  we  recall.  That,  whatever  else  maybe  for- 
gotten here,  will,  I  venture  to  predict,  survive  and 
endure.  The  young  feet  that  turn  hither  to  push 
wider  open  the  gates  of  helpful  knowledge  will 
linger,  as  they  pass  through  yonder  haU,  to  look 
upon  the  portrait  of  the  man  who  put  all  this 
munificence  of  many-sided  culture  within  their 
reach;  and  as  they  catch  the  firm,  serene,  and 
benignant  expression  that  shines  forth  from  it, 
will  bless  God  with  us,  and  with  all  men  every- 
where who  knew  him,  that  Anthony  Drexel  lived 
—  nay,  that,  though  he  rests  from  his  labors,  he 
still  lives,  even  as  "  his  works  do  foUow  him." 

214 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  MUSIC 

ADDRESS 

At  the  Dedication  of  the  Carnegie  Music  Hall 
May  5,  1891. 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  MUSIC 


THIS  is  a  feast  of  dedication,  and  as,  on  the 
field    of    historic   Grettysburg,  Lincoln,  with 
matchless  eloquence  declared. 

In  a  large  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  con- 
secrate, we  cannot  hallow  this  ground ;  the  brave  men 
who  struggled  here  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our 
poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note, 
nor  long  remember,  what  we  say  here ;  but  it  can  never 
forget  what  they  did  here '  — 

so  here,  and  to-night,  and  all  through  the  long 
vista  of  tuneful  days  and  nights  which  open  from 
this  hour,  wiU  it  be  theirs  who  are  to  make  it  vocal 
with  song  and  resonant  with  melody  and  harmony, 
to  dedicate  and  rededicate  this  noble  building  to 
those  noble  uses  to  which  this  evening  it  is  set 
apart. 

But  though  in  any  technical  sense  such  an  occa- 
sion as  this  demands  no  set  oration,  it  has  been 
judged  that  it  would  not  be  quite  complete  with- 

1  President  Lincoln's  Gettysbiirg  oration. 
217 


The  Ministry  of  Miisic 

out,  at  least,  some  words  of  greeting  and  congrat- 
ulation. And,  as  I  fondly  believe,  I  have  been 
chosen  to  speak  them  because  I  happen  to  repre- 
sent that  largest  class  among  us  most  largely  rep- 
resented within  these  walls.  There  is  the  scien- 
tific musician,  he  of  the  thorough  knowledge  of 
aU  the  various  mysteries  of  musical  construction, 
and  of  the  intricacies  of  harmony  and  thorough- 
bass ;  he  who  knows  the  history,  the  resources,  and 
the  relations  of  every  musical  instrument,  and 
all  the  manifold  possibilities  of  that  incomparable 
musical  instrument,  the  human  voice;  he  who  is 
steeped  in  all  the  musical  lore  of  the  past,  and 
abreast  of  all  the  musical  possibilities  of  the  pres- 
ent. We  look  at  such  an  one  with  awe,  and  Hsten 
to  him  with  reverence ;  and  such  an  one  listens  to 
us,  as  I  can  testify  from  painful  personal  experi- 
ence, with  a  kind  of  gracious  condescension  in 
which  pity  for  our  audacity,  and  tenderness  for 
our  ignorance  are  mixed  in  about  equal  parts. 
But  how  far  apart  is  such  an  one  from  those 
others  still  groping  among  the  elements  of  the 
great  science  of  music ;  still  wedded,  as  a  pungent 
critic  has  pointedly  put  it,  to  the  "  poor  worship 
of  the  commonplace  " ;  still  crying  like  spoiled  and 
wayward  children  for  a  tune,  and  impatient,  like 
the  "  gods  "  in  some  theater  gallery,  of  any  strains 
to  which  they  cannot  keep  time  with  their  heels ! 

These  are  at  the  other  extreme;  but  between 
them  there  is  a  great  multitude,  of  which  you  and 
I  are,  I  was  tempted  to  say, —  or,  at  any  rate,  of 
which  I  am, — representative.    To  these  there  are 

218 


The  Ministry  of  Music 

mysteries  in  Wagner  and  Brahms,  and  the  rest 
of  their  greater  kind,  which  are  still  unattainable. 
They  listen,  sometimes  with  a  respectful  patience, 
and  oftener,  it  may  be,  with  an  unconfessed  per- 
plexity. But  once  and  again  and  again  there  come 
even  to  such  the  hints  of  greater  things  to  which 
even  they  too  may  attain.  Once  and  again,  leav- 
ing the  shallow  shores  of  melody,  they  find  them- 
selves borne  along  upon  the  ever-greatening  tides 
of  mighty  harmonies.  Once  and  again  they  catch 
some  fleeting  glimpse  of  deeper  meanings  which 
yet  they  cannot  quite  discern ;  and  these  are  they 
who,  this  evening,  hail  this  hour  with  heartiest 
and  most  gi-ateful  acclaim.  For  here  they  see  the 
opening  of  a  gi'eat  people's  great  School  of  Music, 
in  which  the  present  shall  not  quite  lose  touch 
with  the  past,  and  in  which  every  soul  made  sen- 
sible to  God's  high  ministry  of  sound  and  song 
shall  climb  up,  though  it  may  sometimes  be  with 
halting  and  uncertain  step,  to  its  highest  and 
holiest  meanings. 

In  such  a  progress  we  have  come  to  a  memora- 
ble and  inspiring  moment.  In  the  history  of  what 
I  may  call  the  evolution  of  institutions,  their  life 
may  be  roughly  divided  into  two  parts.  First, 
there  is  the  era  of  gestation,  of  struggle,  of  incipi- 
ency.  Some  one  is  quickened  by  an  idea ;  the  idea 
ripens  into  a  desire ;  the  desire  seeks  for  its  appro- 
priate expression ;  that  expression  demands  coop- 
erative forces ;  those  forces,  drawn  together  by  a 
common  purpose,  arrange  and  rearrange  and  dis- 
arrange themselves.    There  is  progi*ess  and  appar- 

219 


The  Ministry  of  Mmic 

ent  failure ;  there  is  renewed  endeavor,  and  some- 
thing at  least  of  success ;  there  are  periods  of  long 
silence  and  waiting,  and,  as  some  disheartened  ones 
may  think,  of  hopeless  discouragement  and  col- 
lapse ;  and  so,  step  by  step,  slowly  and  tediously  as 
it  seems  to  many, — for  all  gi*eat  things  grow  slow- 
ly,— the  enterprise,  the  idea,  the  institution,  passes 
out  of  its  first  era  of  struggle  and  experiment,  on 
and  up  to  its  second  and  final  era  of  triumph  and 
success. 

And  so  it  has  been  here.  It  is  fifty  years  ago, 
almost  to  a  day,  since  the  first  endeavor  of  which 
this  is  the  fine  and  consummate  flower  took  on 
shape  in  the  city  of  New  York.  Fifty  years  ago 
was  founded  here  the  first  society  for  the  per- 
formance of  symphonic  concerts,  known  as  the 
Philharmonic  Society.  These  few  moments  will 
not  permit  to  me  a  review  of  its  honorable  and 
courageous  history,  nor  that  of  the  little  band 
of  resolute  and  far-seeing  men  who  composed  it. 
When  I  came  to  New  York,  more  than  twenty 
years  ago,  Mr.  Carl  Bergmann  was,  unless  I  am 
mistaken,  conducting  its  concerts;  and  I  remember 
with  what  delight  I  then  turned  to  them.  My 
home  had  previously  been  in  Boston,  where  already 
we  had  om'  great  Music-Hail,  and  where  its  Satur- 
day-afternoon concerts  were  at  once  an  education 
and  a  delight.  The  influence  of  New  England,  felt 
in  so  many  ways  in  this  community  almost  from 
its  Dutch  beginning,  was  then  already  perceptible 
in  the  matter  of  a  higher  taste  in  music;  for  it 
must  never  be  forgotten,  in  justice  to  those  magi, 

220 


The  Ministry  of  Music 

those  wise  men  of  our  own  East,  that  in  this,  as  in 
a  great  many  other  good  and  noble  things,  Boston 
had  gone  a  long  way  before  us.  But  the  history 
of  the  Philharmonic  Society  was  in  many  respects 
discouraging.  The  new  era  in  modern  music  had 
not  quite  dawned.  The  new  day  of  wide-spread 
musical  enthusiasm  was  still  a  long  way  off. 
Classical  music  had  to  obtrude  itself  with  con- 
siderable and  cautious  reserve,  and  the  dominion 
of  "  Yankee  Doodle  "  in  the  concert-room  was  still 
a  very  vibrant  and  penetrating  reality.  It  is  the 
more  honorable,  therefore,  to  those  earlier  pioneers 
in  the  work  which  is  crowned  this  evening  with 
this  splendid  success,  that  they  would  not  be  dis- 
com'aged.  They  were  few  in  numbers,  they  were 
often  and  widely  misunderstood,  but  still  they  per- 
severed, and  in  time  they  planted  a  seed  which  has 
since  then  blossomed  in  many  and  various  forms. 

Among  them  was  the  Oratorio  Society,  founded 
some  eighteen  years  ago  by  that  rare  man  and 
accomplished  and  enthusiastic  musician.  Dr.  Leo- 
pold Damrosch.  Before  that  day  there  had  been 
more  than  one  choral  society  called  into  being, 
only  to  live  a  struggling  and  fitful  existence,  and 
then  expire.  There  was  high  purpose,  there  was 
willing  cooperation,  there  was  cheerful  expendi- 
ture. But  the  occasion  demanded  a  man^  and  it 
got  him  in  Dr.  Damrosch.  He  had  not,  perhaps, 
every  gift  and  quality  that  make  a  great  leader  and 
conductor,  but  he  had  the  most  important  of  them. 
He  knew  how  to  awaken  enthusiasm,  he  knew 
how  to  muster  and  mass  his  forces,  and  he  was 

221 


The  Ministry  of  Miisic 

a  thorough  master  of  his  art.  Best  of  all,  he  had 
that  fine  and  self-forgetting  enthusiasm  which  is 
indispensable  to  any  large  and  commanding  influ- 
ence. He  believed  profoundly  in  his  art,  he  de- 
spised charlatanry  and  pretension,  he  reverently 
owned  the  high  and  sacred  ministry  of  music,  and 
he  gave  himself  utterly  to  its  promotion.  There  is 
an  element,  to  me  at  any  rate,  of  profound  pathos 
in  this  occasion,  when  I  think  how  he  would  have 
rejoiced  in  it,  and  how  within  these  walls  his  rare 
gifts  would  have  found  their  fitting  and  inspiring 
opportunity.  May  this  hall  not  be  long  without 
his  bust,  to  recall  to  our  grateful  recollection  the 
reverent  student,  the  loving  master,  and  the  ardent 
and  untiring  leader ! 

It  was  Dr.  Damrosch's  energy  and  magnetic  per- 
suasiveness that,  five  years  later,  also  called  into 
being  the  Symphony  Society.  Its  experience  was 
not  whoUy  unlike  that  of  its  predecessors,  and  its 
honorable  story  has  been  one  of  difficulty  and 
struggle.  Along  with  it,  as  before  it  and  after  it, 
have  arisen  other  musical  societies,  aU  of  them 
witnesses  to  a  high  purpose  and  ever-growing  as- 
pirations of  which  I  may  not  tarry  to  teU  the  tale. 
They  have  known  many  vicissitudes,  and  the  great 
musical  festivals  in  which  they  have  from  time 
to  time  culminated  have  been  followed  more  than 
once  by  periods  of  reaction  and  depression. 

Indeed  it  could  not  well  have  been  otherwise. 
Those  festivals,  under  whatever  leadership, 
whether  that  of  Dr.  Damrosch  or  our  own  match- 
less Thomas, —  ours,  alas!  no  more;  but  one  day, 

222 


The  Ministry  of  Mmc 

I  trust,  to  return  to  the  city  of  his  earlier  triumphs 
and  his  long  and  brilliant  career, —  those  festivals 
had  demonstrated,  if  they  demonstrated  nothing 
else,  the  imperious  necessity  for  such  a  home  for 
music  as  we  are  dedicating  to-night.  It  has  been 
a  depressing  experience  to  listen  to  some  great 
and  elevating  composition  in  an  atmosphere  where 
the  clown  was  capering  last  night  and  might  be 
capering  to-morrow.  It  was  not  an  inspiring  spec- 
tacle to  trace  the  outlines  of  the  prize-ring  encir- 
cling the  conductor's  throne,  and  it  needed  a 
quahty  not  ordinarily  given  to  accomplished  mu- 
sicians to  dispute  the  possession  of  their  temple 
with  the  gentleman  who  swallowed  three  dinner- 
knives  and  the  lady  who  jumped,  even  though  it 
was  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  brass  band, 
through  six  balloons ! 

Let  us  be  thankful  that  to-night  that  melan- 
choly era  is  ended.  The  hour  had  come,  and  it 
only  wanted  a  man.  And  then  there  came  the 
man!  We  are  not  accustomed  to  associate  with 
Scotland  the  highest  conceptions  of  music ;  and  if 
you  are  ever  a  guest  in  a  Scottish  castle,  I  can  de- 
sire no  better  thing  for  you  than  that  you  should 
survive  the  welcome  of  the  bagpipes !  But  a 
Scotchman  transplanted  to  America  and  regen- 
erated by  our  freer  and  more  melodious  airs — a 
Scotchman  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  "  Triumph- 
ant Democracy" — what  may  we  not  do  with  him, 
and  what  may  he  not  do  for  us  ?  You  remember 
the  inscription  on  the  tomb  of  Sir  Christopher 
Wren  in  St.   Paul's   Cathedral,  "  Si  monumentum 

223 


The  Ministry  of  Music 

requiris,  circumspiceP  Mr.  Carnegie  has  reared  so 
many  buildings,  for  so  many  uses,  in  so  many 
lands,  that  it  would  not  be  easy  perhaps  for 
others  to  say  to  which  one  of  them  that  legend  be- 
longs. But  we  who  are  here  to-night  are  in  no 
doubt  at  all.  No  finer  illustration  could  be  found, 
I  think,  of  the  beneficent  and  enlarging  influence 
of  those  free  institutions  to  which  he  has  paid  so 
glowing  a  tribute,  than  the  erection  of  this  build- 
ing, almost  wholly, —  and  not  altogether  wholly 
simply  and  only  in  order  that  he  might  bind  to- 
gether others  with  himself  in  a  common  endea- 
vour for  its  future, — by  a  private  citizen  for  the 
greatest  good  of  the  gi-eatest  number  of  his  fellow- 
men.  In  other  countries,  and  under  other  govern- 
ments such  things  are  largely  done  by  subsidies, 
and  through  the  intervention  of  the  State.  It  is  a 
happy  omen  for  New  York  that  a  single  individ- 
ual can  do  so  princely  a  thing  in  so  modest  a  way ; 
and  I  am  sure  that  you  wiU  unite  with  me  in  those 
grateful  and  unstinted  congratulations  which  we 
all  desire  to  offer  him.  Happy  the  man  who  can 
use  his  wealth  to  widen  human  happiness,  and 
happiest  he  who  elects  to  do  so  in  a  beneficence  at 
once  so  felicitous  and  so  far-reaching ! 

For  we  may  not  forget  that  having  lived  through 
the  period  of  gestation,  of  discipline,  of  struggle, 
and  of  endeavor  to  which  I  have  alluded,  we  have 
now  come  to  the  era  of  achievement.  Those  who 
have  reared  this  noble  hall  would  be  the  first  to 
agree  with  me  that,  after  all,  a  music-hall  is  not 
music,   and  that  structui^e,  fabric,  conveniences, 

224 


The  Ministry  of  Music 

however  ample  and  various, —  and  those  that  sa- 
lute us  here  this  evening  are  probably  equally- 
incomparable  and  unique, — all  these,  nevertheless, 
are  not  ministry  and  service.  My  friend  and  his 
associates  who  have  reared  this  building  have  not 
reared  it  as  an  end.  At  best  it  is  but  a  means  to 
an  end ;  and  what  that  end  is  to  be,  it  remains  for 
the  future  to  determine. 

And  that  brings  me  to  the  one  thought  with 
which  this  evening  I  would  conclude.  The  mis- 
sion of  music  to  our  age  and  our  community  — 
what  is  it?  Plainly  the  answer  which  such  an 
one  as  I  may  give  to  such  a  question  must  be  only 
that  of  a  layman.  But,  as  I  have  already  inti- 
mated, it  is  for  that  larger  constituency  which 
cannot  be  classed  among  scientific  musicians  that 
I  am  here  to  speak.  And  in  their  behalf  I  claim 
that  music  has  a  threefold  function. 

It  is,  first  of  all,  a  recreation.  By  this  I  do  not 
mean  merely  for  the  performer,  though  I  gladly 
recognize  its  mission  to  multitudes  of  performers 
all  the  world  over.  You  remember  Balzac's  story 
of  the  man  who  had  his  mother's  soul  imprisoned 
in  his  violin.  It  is  not,  however,  one's  mother's 
soul,  but  one's  own,  that  finds  expression  in  the  in- 
strument one  handles ;  and  in  this  aspect  of  music 
there  is  doubtless  a  realm  of  consolation  which  is 
simply  inexhaustible.  But  I  am  speaking  now 
of  the  ofi&ce  of  music  to  its  hearers ;  and  that,  I 
maintain,  is,  first  of  all,  recreation.  In  speaking 
of  music  as  a  therapeutic,  Haweis  has  imagined 
some  tired  and  overtaxed  man  or  woman  lying 


15 


225 


The  Ministry  of  MiLsic 

fagged  and  exhausted  upon  a  sofa,  and  saying: 
"  Do  not  play  that  Tannhauser  overture  just  now ; 
it  wears  me  out  —  I  cannot  bear  it";  or,  "Yes, 
sing  that  '  Du  bist  die  Ruh','  and  after  that  I  must 
have  Mendelssohn's  nocturne  out  of  the  '  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream'";  and  then — and  then,  what 
must  come  next  must  be  left  to  the  tact  and  quick 
sympathy  of  the  musician. 

Surely  we  have  here  one  of  the  first,  even  if 
you  choose  to  call  it  one  of  the  lowest,  ministries 
of  music.  The  gift  of  hearing  is  one  which,  like 
every  other  gift,  carries  its  own  penalties  with  it. 
Do  I  need  to  tell  any  one  to  whom  I  speak  this 
evening  what  one  of  the  foremost  of  those  penal- 
ties is  in  a  great  city  like  ours?  The  demon  of 
noise,  brutal,  cruel,  piercing  noise;  the  noises  of 
the  day,  dinning,  deafening,  maddening  almost, 
— yes,  and  of  the  night  as  well:  how  the  brain 
aches  and  quivers  often  with  the  torment  of  them ! 
Now,  have  you  ever  thought  that  the  dissonance 
of  these  noises,  their  harsh  and  contentious  con- 
fusion, thek  sharp  and  greatening  accumulations, 
the  bewildering  and  tormenting  discord  of  them, 
were  large  elements  of  their  torture  I  And  so  we 
hail,  whether  conscious  or  not  why  it  is  so,  those 
organized  sounds  which  make  up  what  we  call  mel- 
ody and  harmony.  It  is  the  sweet  and  regulated 
exchange  of  order  for  chaos  that  first  delights  us, 
and,  with  many  persons  it  is  this  alone,  I  imagine, 
that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  delights  us. 
The  simple  melody  at  once  soothes  and  heals  the 
ear,  the  irritated  nerves  respond  to  the  kindly  and 

226 


The  Ministry  of  Music 

easy  rhythm,  and  the  whole  nature  yields  in  grate- 
ful refreshment  to  a  skill  that  is  at  once  whole- 
some and  pure. 

You  may  call  this  a  very  primitive  and  a  very 
inferior  service  for  music  to  render ;  but  I  hope  it 
will  never  be  forgotten  within  these  walls.  In 
that  volume  of  the  most  marvelous  poetry  which 
the  hand  of  man  has  ever  penned  —  need  I  say 
that  I  mean  the  Psalms  of  David? — there  occurs  a 
verse  in  which  the  writer  is  depicting  a  festal  pro- 
cession, and  in  which  he  says : 

The  singers  go  before,  the  minstrels  follow  after :  in 
the  midst  are  the  damsels  playing  with  the  timbrels ; 

and  I  have  often  thought  that  the  words  were  no 
unfit  image  of  that  gracious  and  kindly  office  of 
music  to  bind  together,  so  far  as  may  be,  the  least 
and  the  most  cultivated  hearer,  and  along  with 
higher  and  more  ambitious  aims  to  marry  a  low- 
lier, but  no  less  helpful  art.  We  hear  much  in 
these  days  of  the  "  music  of  the  future,"  and  they 
who  are  its  apostles  may  safely  be  trusted  to 
sound  its  praises.  But  will  they  indulge  me  in 
expressing  the  hope  that,  whatever  the  music  of 
the  future  may  be,  it  will  not  quite  part  company 
with  the  music  of  the  past  ?  A  wise  reformer,  a 
true  prophet,  leader,  seer,  is  he  who,  seeing  those 
greater  possibilities,  in  his  art  or  his  vocation, 
which  are  before  him,  does  not  run  so  fast  to 
meet  them  that  he  leaves  behind  and  out  of  sight 
those  whom  he  would  fain  bring  into  his  promised 
land.      The  play-impulse  in  human  nature,   the 

227 


Tbe  Ministry  of  Music 

"eternal  childhood  in  the  man"  —  or  woman — 
which  craves  sometimes  expression  and  relief  even 
in  our  latest  years — those,  verily,  we  may  not  leave 
out  of  account  in  recognizing  the  recreative  minis- 
try of  music. 

And  then  most  surely  its  ministry  as  an  emo- 
tional and  intellectual  discipline.  The  Greeks 
were  right  —  wonderful  people  that  they  were  —  in 
putting  music  and  gymnastics,  in  their  scheme  of 
education,  close  together.  No  keener  pleasure  can 
come  to  the  mind  through  the  senses,  I  fancy,  than 
that  which  comes  from  following  a  composer's 
thought  in  and  out  through  all  the  intricacies  of 
his  masses  and  variations  of  sound.  To  see  the 
theme  betray  itself  and  then  retire, —  to  catch  a 
gleam,  so  to  speak,  of  a  vanishing  figure  as  it  melts 
out  of  sight, —  to  detect  the  return  and  the  retreat, 
the  gathering  force,  the  marshaled  movement,  and 
then,  at  last,  after  long  waiting,  the  tidal  rush 
and  sweep  and  climax  of  the  whole,  the  emotions 
and  the  senses,  all  in  one,  which  it  needs  no  artist 
to  discern  nor  scholar  to  enjoy ! 

And  that  brings  me  to  the  last  and  highest  office 
which  this  building,  ringing  and  resonant  with 
sweet  sounds,  is  henceforth  to  fulfil  —  long  may  it 
endure  to  fulfil  it!  Outside  the  realm  of  sight  and 
sound  and  sense,  there  is  another  realm  skirting  it 
so  close,  and  yet  in  busy,  sordid  moments  seeming 
removed  how  far !  We  may  be  tempted  to  call  it 
the  realm  of  the  imagination,  but  indeed  it  is  in- 
finitely more  than  that.  It  is  the  realm  in  which 
the  actual  vanishes  to  give  way  to  the  possible. 

228 


The  Ministry  of  Music 

It  is  the  realm  in  which  great  deeds  that  seem 
in  our  more  hopeless  hours  so  unattainable  take 
on  another  hue.  It  is  the  realm  of  aspiration,  of 
faith,  of  hope.  Out  of  ignoble  thoughts  and  inter- 
ests there  is  a  stairway  up  along  which,  like  Luther 
along  the  Scala  Santa  at  Rome,  the  soul  climbs  to 
a  great  and  heroic  purpose.  And  that  is  the  stair- 
way on  whose  lowest  rungs  many  tired  feet  will,  I 
verily  believe,  come  here  to  stand.  As  in  many 
an  ancient  minster  and  many  a  lowly  sanctuary, 
music,  finding  its  highest  office  in  the  service  of 
religion,  has  lifted  the  soul  toward  God,  so  here 
will  come  those  who,  on  the  strains  of  Handel  and 
Haydn  and  Beethoven,  and  their  great  compeers 
and  greater  successors,  will  be  borne  as  "on  mighty 
pens"  aloft  to  commune  with  unseen  worlds  and 
to  find  mightiest  majesty  of  harmony  and  ever 
greatening  waves  of  song,  the  vestibule  to  realms 
of  vision  and  of  peace  ineffable. 

The  hour  passes,  but  the  act  remains;  and  so 
this  fair  and  finished  temple  will  endure  to  wel- 
come weary  hearts  aching  to  be  ennobled  and  up- 
lifted. Here  they  will  come  —  I  love  to  think  of 
it  —  out  of  narrower  scenes  into  this  august  am- 
plitude, and  sit  and  dream  and  aspire.  For  music 
has  a  language  of  its  own  —  it  is  expression  to 
that  in  the  human  soul  which  supremely  craves 
expression,  and  which  in  mere  words  alone  can 
never  find  it.  It  may  indeed  be  made  the  servant 
of  things  mean  and  low,  but  it  was  meant  su- 
premely for  the  highest.  May  it  serve  none  other 
than  those  noblest,  highest  uses  here !    May  this 

15*  220 


The  Ministry  of  Music 

be,  and  may  it  be  more  and  more,  the  home  of 
loftiest  themes,  which  here  find  loftiest  expres- 
sion and  so  may  men  be  trained  within  these 
walls  to  highest  thoughts  and  noblest  longings, 
and  so  to  worthiest  service  for  their  fellow-men ! 

And  now  my  task  is  done.  But  one  word  more 
remains,  and  I  am  glad  and  thankful  to  pronounce 
it.  Men  and  women  of  New  York,  we  bring  this 
finished  work  to  you.  Generously  cherish,  con- 
serve, and  use  it  for  its  highest  ends ! 


230 


THE  GOSPEL  FOR  WEALTH 

Published  m  the  North  American  Review,  May,  1891 


THE  GOSPEL  FOR  WEALTH 


THE  interesting  papers  by  Mr.  Andrew  Carne- 
gie, bearing  a  title  slightly  different  from  that 
at  the  head  of  this  communication,  have,  not  un- 
worthily, awakened  a  wide  and  keen  interest.  It 
is  a  hopeful  sign  when  one  who  himself  bears  the 
repute  of  being  a  very  rich  man  can  approach  a 
subject  confessedly  of  so  much  importance,  not 
alone  with  such  cordial  interest,  but  with  such  en- 
tire candor;  and  when,  best  of  all,  he  can  take 
such  high  ground,  and  define  his  own  position  in 
such  unmistakable  terms. 

For  it  is  a  discouraging  feature  of  the  pres- 
ent situation  that,  apparently,  it  so  little  inter- 
ests those  who  are  supremely  concerned  with  it. 
There  are  a  great  many  of  us  who  are  not  posses- 
sors of  great  wealth,  nor  ever  likely  to  be,  who  are 
entirely  ready  to  tell  those  who  are  how  perilous  a 
possession  it  is,  and  precisely  what  they  should  do 
with  it.  Indeed,  the  satirist  might  find  tempting 
food  for  his  humor  if  he  could  read  the  corre- 
spondence of  rich  men,  and  know  what  increasing 

233 


The  Gospel  for  iVealth 

streams  of  counsel  and  admonition,  as  well  as  of 
solicitation,  flow  in  upon  them.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances it  is  not  surprising  that  irritation  is 
followed  by  impatience,  and  impatience  by  re- 
sentment, and  that,  in  turn,  too  often  by  stony  in- 
difference. Indeed,  it  is  greatly  to  the  honor  of 
many  people  of  great  wealth  that  they  do  not  be- 
come so  indurated  to  the  cries  of  criticism  and 
of  mendicancy  as  to  dismiss  the  whole  question 
of  the  stewardship  of  wealth  as  one  impossible  of 
solution. 

Unfortunately,  too  many  of  them  do;  and  the 
fact  to  which  I  have  just  adverted  is  a  most 
impressive,  and  in  some  aspects  of  it  pathetic, 
evidence  of  that  fact.  The  paper  which  I  am  dis- 
cussing is,  so  far  as  my  own  observation  goes,  ab- 
solutely unique.  At  this  moment  I  cannot  recall, 
in  our  generation,  any  other  instance  of  one  pos- 
sessed of  exceptional  wealth  who  has  undertaken 
to  discuss,  publicly  and  at  any  length,  the  ques- 
tion of  its  disposition.  And  yet  it  would  seem  as 
if  there  were  no  other  question  which  ought  more 
profoundly  to  interest  the  rich.  Great  wealth  is  a 
great  power.  Leaving  out  of  sight,  for  the  time 
being,  its  possible  effects  upon  its  possessor,  it  is 
still,  with  reference  to  other  people,  a  very  danger- 
ous power.  Such  proverbs  as  "  Every  man  has 
his  price  "  may  be  largely  false  —  thank  God  they 
are!  But  they  could  not  exist,  and  find  such 
wide  acceptance,  if  they  had  not  in  them  some 
element  of  truth.  And  when  once  that  is  admit- 
ted, it  follows  plainly  that  he  who  possesses,  in 

234 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

some  huge  degree,  the  power  of  corrupting  his 
fellow-men  controls  an  extremely  dangerous  force. 
This  is  true,  moreover,  whether  we  regard  every 
man  as  a  purchasable  creature,  or  whether  we 
merely  regard  society  as  corruptible  as  a  whole. 
For  it  does  not  need  that  men  and  women  should 
be  bought  for  some  evil  purpose  by  money  in  or- 
der to  be  corrupted  by  it.  A  much  more  subtle 
and  more  general  form  of  corruption  is  that  which 
reaches  down  from  the  vices  and  extravagances 
of  the  rich  to  those  who  are  below  them  in  the 
scale  of  wealth.  "  Did  you  ever  notice,"  said  some 
one,  "  the  faces  of  domestic  servants  in  great 
houses — how  sodden  and  sensual,  how  furtive  and 
disingenuous,  how  vicious  and  unwholesome,  they 
often  become.  What  makes  it  so?"  And  the 
questioner  answered  his  own  inquiry  by  saying 
that  "  when  one  served,  all  the  while,  people  who 
were  steeped  in  luxury,  '  busy  in  idleness,'  as  an 
old  English  dramatist  wi'ote,  and  careless  and 
prodigal  in  every  selfish  expenditure,  it  was  im- 
possible but  that  he  should  catch  the  disease  him- 
self!" 

But  the  disease  spreads  wider  than  the  kitchen 
and  the  servants'  hall.  Does  anybody  who  lives 
in  a  great  city  go  about  at  all  in  public  places  and 
public  conveyances  without  noting  the  enormous 
increase  in  costliness  of  personal  ornamentation 
which  obtains  among  all  classes?  When  the  late 
Mr.  Tweed  was  in  the  zenith  of  his  power  as 
"  Boss  "  of  New  York,  he  was  standing  one  day  in 
the  Mayor's  office,  talking  with  the  person  who 

235 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

then  (as  since  then  too  often !)  had  been  elected  as 
the  occupant  of  that  office  to  do  the  work  of  a 
"  ring,"  when  a  large  diamond  stud  dropped  upon 
the  floor  and  rolled  to  the  feet  of  a  gentleman 
from  whom  I  heard  the  incident.  He  picked  it  up 
—  it  was  a  diamond  as  big,  nearly,  as  a  good-sized 
strawberry  —  and  offered  it  to  the  Mayor.  Said 
"  his  Honor,"  "  It  is  not  mine."  "  Nor  mine,"  said 
one  after  another  of  the  circle,  as  it  was  passed 
around.  "  Stop  a  moment,"  said  the  "  Boss," 
fumbling  with  his  clothes.  "  Ah,  yes ;  I  believe  it 
is  one  of  my  suspender  buttons."  But  if  bosses 
must  have  diamonds  to  do  the  rougher  work  of 
personal  investiture,  their  henchmen  must  have 
something  quite  as  fine  for  other  and  more  con- 
spicuous service.  And  as  one  sees  women  and 
men  whose  circumstances  in  life,  honorably  inter- 
preted, can,  it  would  seem,  by  no  possibility  ex- 
plain the  costly  raiment  and  costlier  jewelry  with 
which  they  are  bedizened,  the  mind  is  inevitably 
started  upon  a  train  of  speculation  which  must 
needs  have  its  issue  in  most  dreary  and  tragic  ap- 
prehensions. What  is  the  saddest  of  them  if  it  is 
not  this — that  somewhere  there  is  somebody  with 
the  command,  practically,  of  illimitable  money, 
who  may  not  at  all  use  it  actively  to  corrupt  an- 
other, but  the  contagion  of  whose  extravagance 
fires  that  baleful  light  of  envy  in  another's  eye 
which  will  not  be  quenched  until  it  has,  at  what- 
ever cost,  touched  the  same  extreme  limit  of 
tawdry  and  vulgar  display  f 
Now,  I  do  not  see  how  anybody  who  has  great 

2}6 


Tbe  Gospel  for  Wealth 

wealth,  and  whose  habit  is  one  of  large  and  loose 
expenditure,  can  dismiss  that  aspect  of  this  sub- 
ject without  profound  mental  concern.  It  is  a 
most  painful  consideration,  or  ought  to  be  to 
any  right-minded  persons,  that  their  heedless  and 
selfish  use  of  money  is  corrupting  the  very  air 
which  is  breathed  by  their  fellows;  and  the  ami- 
able sophistry  that  luxury  and  extravagance  put 
money  in  circulation,  and  so  promote  a  benefi- 
cent expenditure,  becomes,  in  the  face  of  our  mod- 
ern civilization,  with  its  complex  and  tremendous 
social  problems,  simply  a  monstrous  impertinence. 
Let  me  forestall  any  gratuitous  sneer  by  the  disci- 
ples of  the  "Manchester  doctrine"  of  social  sci- 
ence, by  saying  that  I  have  not  the  smallest 
intention  of  advocating  any  system  of  promiscu- 
ous doles,  or  free  soup-houses,  or  " General"  Booth's 
"  harbors,"  or  any  other  future  contribution  to  the 
greater  degradation  of  the  poor.  But  it  ought  not 
to  be  necessary  to  tell  any  rich  man  who  honestly 
desires  to  be  told,  how  he  can  wisely  employ 
money  to  promote  art,  to  beautify  men's  homes, 
and  naturally,  and,  if  he  chooses,  preeminently, 
his  own,  and  so  do  that  which  will  make  men's 
lives  brighter  and  the  guests  under  his  roof  or  at 
his  table  more  happy,  without  spending  money  in 
ways  that  are  wanton  in  the  prodigality  of  their 
profuseness,  and  only  wasteful  in  the  essentially 
cheap  and  perishable  character  of  their  results. 

I  went  the  other  day  to  the  house  of  a  gentle- 
man in  a  great  city  (alas !  he  is  not  an  American, — 
nor  an  Englishman,  let  me  add, —  would  that  it 

237 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

were  much  the  way  of  either !),  where  the  guests 
were  bidden  to  celebrate  the  opening  of  a  beautiful 
and  stately  mansion.  There  was  the  most  perfect 
administration  of  domestic  service,  there  was  an 
hour  of  the  most  exquisite  music  (to  which,  un- 
happily, most  of  the  guests  were  apparently  reluc- 
tant to  listen),  and  then  there  was  a  cup  of  tea, 
and  the  simple,  refined,  and  thoroughly  refreshing 
occasion  was  at  an  end.  It  is  difficult  to  see  why 
such  an  entertainment  may  not  be  regarded,  in  a 
profuse  and  over-stimulated  age,  as  a  wholesome 
and  charming  object-lesson.  Music,  painting, 
sculpture,  the  multiplication  of  means  for  placing 
the  advantages  of  artistic  culture  and  recreation 
within  the  reach  of  those  whose  lives  are  bare  and 
hard  —  surely  these  are  avenues  for  the  employ- 
ment of  wealth  that  stain  no  innocent  soul,  and 
leave  no  heartbreak  behind  them ! 

And  that  brings  me  to  the  one  word  which  I 
want  to  contribute  to  this  discussion,  already  in 
danger  of  being  unduly  prolonged. 

I  have  entitled  what  is  here  said,  "  The  Gospel 
for  Wealth,"  as  distinguished  from  "The  Gospel  of 
Wealth."  The  latter  is  concerned  with  wealth  as 
a  means  of  contributing  to  the  happiness  of  those 
in  whose  behalf  it  is  expended.  But  I  have  in 
mind  what  wealth  may  become  to  those  who 
worthily  employ  it.  The  gospel  —  the  God's  spell 
—  for  the  wealthy:  Can  wealth  be  made  efficient 
for  the  greater  happiness  of  those  who  expend  it ; 
and  if  so,  how?  There  are  plenty  of  people  who 
are  entirely  clear  as  to  how  that  question  can  be 

238 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

answered ;  but  it  would  hardly  seem  that  very  rich 
people  have  made  the  discovery.  Froissart,  in  his 
"  Chronicles,"  writes  of  those  "  who  take  their  plea- 
sui'e  sadly,  after  the  manner  of  the  English  " ;  and 
when  one  goes  into  Central  Park  and  looks  at  the 
people  who,  like  Miss  Bella  Wilfer  in  "Our  Mutual 
Friend,"  have  learned  how  to  "loll  in  their  car- 
riages," it  must  be  owned  that  they  who  "take 
their  pleasure  sadly  "  still  survive  in  large  numbers 
among  ourselves.  It  is  not  alone  that  so  many 
very  rich  people  seem  careworn,  and  often  anx- 
ious and  abstracted.  It  is  impossible  that  any 
one  should  have  great  and  grave  responsibilities 
without  in  some  way  showing  their  scars;  and 
mediocrity,  whether  in  gifts  or  in  possessions,  may 
well  console  itself  in  the  consciousness  that  if  it  is 
without  either  of  these,  it  is,  in  the  same  measure 
at  any  rate,  without  great  anxieties.  But  what  I 
have  in  mind  is  that  loss  of  enthusiasms,  that  con- 
traction of  the  horizon  of  interests,  that  induration 
of  the  faculties  that  are  touched  by  nature,  by 
humanity,  by  nobleness  of  achievement,  which,  I 
think  it  must  be  owned,  is  a  very  frequent,  if  not 
a  very  common,  characteristic  of  the  possessors  of 
great  wealth. 

I  may  not  turn  aside  to  explain  such  a  fact, 
though  I  am  persuaded  that  it  is  not  difficult  of 
explanation ;  but  it  will  not  be  denied  that  if  it  be 
true,  it  points  to  a  loss  out  of  life  of  that  which 
is  of  priceless  value.  To  keep  the  heart  young; 
to  have  the  powers  that  rouse  us  to  keen  interest, 
and  sustain  us  in  kindly  and  helpful  service,  vig- 

239 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

orous  and  alert ;  to  have  the  world  and  our  fellow- 
men  so  rich  in  points  of  enkindling  contact  that, 
whatever  may  befall  our  capacities  of  achieve- 
ment, our  sympathies  never  grow  old  or  cold  — 
surely  this  is  to  have  snatched  from  the  hand  of 
fate  the  secret  of  happiness,  the  glory  of  being ! 

And  this  is  possible  to  rich  people  as  to  poor 
people,  on  precisely  the  same  terms.  One's  own 
life  must  somehow  reach  over  into,  and  be  quali- 
fied by,  the  struggles  and  interests  of  other  lives. 
In  the  case  of  the  poor  this  is  made  inevitable 
by  the  hard  conditions  of  their  poverty.  As  in 
an  open  boat,  with  half-rations,  all  must  learn 
self-restraint  for  the  good  of  all,  since  individual 
selfishness  means  death  to  most,  so  it  is  in  the 
sorrows,  hardships,  and  struggles  that  come  to  the 
men  and  women  who  live  on  a  day's  wage.  And 
so  it  comes  to  pass,  no  less,  that  these  supremely 
venerate,  because  they  better  understand,  all  hero- 
ism, and  kindle  quickest  at  a  brave  and  kindly 
deed.  When,  the  other  day,  that  brilliant  soldier 
and  kindly  and  knightly  gentleman  who  was  well 
described  as  "  our  best-beloved  citizen,"  was  borne 
to  his  rest,  it  was  in  the  streets  and  avenues  where 
the  tenement-houses  abound  that  the  tributes  of 
love  and  reverence  for  his  memory  were  most  con- 
spicuous, even  as  in  Fifth  Avenue  they  were  least 
so.  And  the  contrast  was  itself  a  parable  wherein 
it  needed  no  seer  to  discern  how  those  whose  hard- 
ships were  bravely  and  patiently  borne  instinc- 
tively honored  one  whose  splendid  service  was 
dimmed,  from  end  to  end,  by  no  mean  thought  of 

240 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

self,  and  whose  love  and  concern  for  his  gallant 
"boys"  was  ever  more  eager  and  alert  than  any 
care  for  himself. 

But  it  is  the  tendency  of  a  well-clad,  well-fed, 
comfortable,  and  sheltered  life  to  make  such  care 
and  concern  for  others  more  and  more  impossible, 
save  as  it  resolutely  seeks  opportunities  for  its 
exercise.  Unfortunately,  at  this  point,  a  conspic- 
uous tendency  of  our  modern  philanthropy  inter- 
feres in  a  most  discouraging  way.  That  tendency, 
whether  in  the  case  of  long-existing  evils  or  of 
exceptional  emergencies,  is  to  deal  with  the  prob- 
lems which  confront  it  vicariously.  The  first 
thought  in  the  face  of  any  gi-eat  evil,  injustice, 
or  suffering  would  seem  to  be  that  it  must  be 
referred  to  a  committee.  The  history  of  social 
reforms  in  our  day  is  apt  to  be  summed  up  in  the 
story  of  a  public  meeting,  with  eloquent  speeches, 
and  the  appointment  of  committees,  and  the  rais- 
ing of  funds.  Undoubtedly  all  these  may  have  a 
useful  place  in  any  great  and  humane  undertak- 
ing. But  it  is  interesting  to  note  that,  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  greatest  reforms,  and  of  benevolent 
movements  that  have  illustrated  what  may  be 
called  considerable  "  staying "  power,  their  begin- 
nings have  been  of  quite  a  different  kind.  Some 
single  mind  has  been  stirred  by  an  emergency,  and 
without  waiting  for  others  has  set  about  doing 
what  it  could  itself.  Some  one  man  or  woman, 
kindled  into  a  flame  of  indignation  by  some  im- 
perious necessity,  has  hastened,  without  tarry- 
ing for  company,  to  meet  it ;   and,  doing  so,  has. 


16 


241 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

of tener  than  otherwise,  shown  how  it  may  be  met ; 
and  that  example,  proving,  as  example  always  is, 
contagious,  has  repeated  itself  in  ever-widening 
circles. 

More  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  an  English 
gentleman  of  fortune,  culture,  and  honorable  lin- 
eage, profoundly  moved  by  the  condition  of  the 
most  neglected  classes  in  London,  determined,  at 
any  rate,  to  try  to  understand  them  better ;  and, 
that  he  might  do  so,  went  quietly  and  lived  among 
them.  It  seemed  a  foolish  and  hopeless  waste 
of  fine  powers  and  generous  sjnnpathies  upon  a 
hopeless  and  impossible  task.  But  to-day  Oxford 
House  and  Toynbee  Hall,  and  the  People's  Palace, 
and  less-known  centers  of  "  sweetness  and  light " 
all  over  East  and  South  London,  show,  with  in- 
spiring significance,  that  Edward  Dennison  did  not 
give  himself  to  England's  poor  unwisely  or  in 
vain.  Steadily  has  the  spell  of  that  solitary  noble- 
ness reached  on,  and  reached  out,  until  we  are  see- 
ing it  reproduced  among  ourselves,  and  that  by 
men  and  women  alike,  in  ways  which,  when  one 
is  tempted  to  despair  of  his  kind,  are  at  once  a 
revelation  and  a  rebuke. 

In  a  recent  discussion  as  to  the  methods  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  and  "  General "  Booth's  scheme 
for  the  abolition,  in  England,  of  poverty,  an  indi- 
vidual testimony  was  called  out  as  to  the  com- 
parative value,  in  individual  cases,  of  what  may 
be  called  the  individual  method  in  reaching  and 
succoring  those  who  are  generally  considered  as 
representing  the  most  hopeless  element  in    our 

242 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

vast  problem  of  poverty  and  vice,  which  has  in 
it  a  truth  of  profoundest  import.    Says  the  writer: 

Years  ago  I  began  to  seek  for  a  way  to  reach  these 
lowest  people.  I  went  to  "  organized  charities,"  public, 
private,  rehgious,  and  secular,  in  the  leading  cities  of 
America  and  Germany.  I  questioned  individual  workers 
of  every  and  no  religious  creed,  and  in  every  case  asked, 
and  was  allowed  to  see,  the  actual  working  of  the  meth- 
ods employed.  The  result  both  startled  and  depressed 
me.  The  reformation  of  a  nature  arrived  at  maturity  in 
ways  of  vice  seemed  something  scarcely  ever  achieved. 
The  matron  of  one  of  the  best-known  reformatory  institu- 
tions in  America  told  me  that,  in  all  the  years  she  had  held 
her  office,  slie  had  not  Jcnotvn  a  single  case  of  reform.  A  cul- 
tivated and  earnest  woman,  whose  whole  hfe  is  devoted 
to  charitable  work  in  connection  with  one  of  the  largest 
churches  in  one  of  our  first  cities,  told  me  she  was  afraid 
their  poor  converts  came  chiefly  for  the  "loaves  and 
fishes."  Another  woman,  of  equal  intelligence  and  expe- 
rience in  the  same  work,  said  the  same  thing.  An  open- 
handed  philanthropist,  a  man  of  high  standing  and 
marked  ability  among  able  men,  said  that  now,  toward 
the  end  of  a  long  life,  he  could  think  of  but  one  person 
in  whom  there  had  been  reform  in  cotiducf,  and  that  one 
man  had  really  reformed  himself ! 

After  much  testimony  of  this  nature,  I  began  to  won- 
der whether  the  people  I  wanted  to  help  could  not  tell 
me  more  about  themselves  than  any  one  else  could  know. 
I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  next  degraded-looking 
woman  I  met  begging  I  would  speak  to  as  I  should  like 
any  one  who  loved  me  to  speak  to  me.  I  went  into  a 
part  of  the  city  where  such  women  are  met.  Almost  im- 
mediately I  came  on  one  exchanging  hideous  repartees 
with  a  set  of  rough  men.     She  turned  to  me  and  asked 

243 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

me  to  ^ve  her  ten  cents.  As  she  looked  up  at  me,  her 
face  for  a  second  struck  me  dumb ;  it  was  more  repul- 
sive than  any  brute's.  To  see  a  woman  look  like  that  al- 
most broke  my  heart.  I  could  scarcely  speak ;  but  with 
an  effort  I  said  simply, ''  Come  with  me,"  and  she  came. 
I  questioned  her.  I  told  her  I  could  not  bear  to  have  a 
woman  like  that,  and  if  she  would  trust  me  with  the  real 
truth  of  her  life,  I  knew  we  could  make  her  life  worth 
living,  which  it  certainly  was  not  now.  To  this  she 
assented  vsdth  answering  directness.  She  told  me  she 
was  "  all  bad  " ;  had  been  sent  to  prison  again  and  again ; 
loved  drink,  and  when  drunk  "  would  do  anything  " ;  was 
about  forty  years  old  now,  and,  when  out  of  prison,  had 
been  in  most  of  the  reformatory  institutions  in  the  city. 
Nothing  had  ever  done  her  any  good ;  she  did  not  think 
she  was  "  that  kind."  I  had  better  let  her  go.  By  this 
time  we  were  before  the  door  of  a  religious  institution 
to  which  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  bring  her ;  but,  as 
I  turned  to  speak  to  her,  her  face  overcame  me  again, 
and,  to  my  own  consternation,  I  burst  into  tears,  and 
wept  over  her  convulsively.  She  wavered  for  a  second, 
and  then,  with  a  cry  of  "  Oh,  dear,  my  dear,  don't  cry  like 
that,  donH,  don't !  I  will  try,  indeed  I  will ! "  she  grasped 
my  hand,  and  suddenly  burst  into  a  storm  of  tears  her- 
self. We  astonished  the  dignified  matron  of  the  house 
which  we  entered,  who  told  me,  before  the  ivretched 
woman,  that  she  knew  her  to  be  a  hopeless  case,  and 
nothing  but  prison  bars  would  restrain  her.  I  told  her 
that  I  did  not  believe  Christ  would  say  so,  and  I  took  my 
poor  sister  to  another  institution.  They  refused  her, 
on  the  same  ground  as  the  first.  We  went  to  another, 
with  the  same  result.  The  woman  was  Irish,  unedu- 
cated, and,  by  courtesy,  a  Roman  Catholic.  But  the  Cath- 
olic Reformatory  Institution,  too,  said  that  a  prison  was 
the  only  place  for  her. 

244 


Tbe  Gospel  for  Wealth 

By  this  time  slie  and  I  had  walked  far  on  a  cold  win- 
ter day,  and  were  very  cold  and  tired.  I  was  boarding, 
and  had  no  home  of  my  own  to  which  I  could  take  her. 
I  told  her  so,  but  also  said  that  I  could  not  give  her  up, 
and  if  she  would  come  with  me  to  my  boarding-house  for 
rest  and  luncheon  I  would  try  to  think  of  what  could  be 
done  afterward.  She  came,  to  the  horror  of  my  emi- 
nently respectable  Christian  landlady,  and  after  an  hour 
we  set  out  again,  but  with  no  better  result.  My  heart 
grew  sick  and  hot  within  me ;  and  at  last  the  poor  re- 
jected creature  rushed  off  from  the  last  place  where  they 
refused  to  have  her,  calling  out :  "  You  see,  it 's  no  tise, 
nottse!"  But  I  called  after  her,  "Yes,  it  is;  remember 
my  street  and  number ! "  I  supposed  I  had  lost  her,  in 
spite  of  myself.  The  weeks  went  by,  and  I  saw  nothing 
of  her,  and  I  did  not  know  where  to  look  for  her.  At 
last,  three  months  afterward,  she  appeared  at  my  board- 
ing-house, asked  to  see  me,  but,  by  the  orders  of  the 
Christian  landlady,  was  refused  admittance.  She  then 
asked  the  servant,  who  happened  to  be  the  same  one  who 
had  admitted  her  on  the  first  occasion,  to  tell  me  that 
from  the  day  she  left  me  she  had  not  touched  a  drop  of 
liquor,  and  had  been  what  I  wanted  her  to  be.  The 
servant  added :  "  And  the  truth  it  was,  too ;  for  she  looked 
so  different  and  so  decent  I  scarcely  knew  her." 

Now,  here  was  a  case  where  not  one  penny  had  been 
expended;  indeed,  the  woman  was  told  with  simple 
frankness  that  I  believed  the  worst  thing  I  could  do 
would  be  to  give  her  money ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
I  neither  howled,  nor  grinned,  nor  used  her  language.  I 
spoke,  straight  from  my  inmost  soul,  the  deepest,  the 
sweetest  truth  I  knew,  and  "  deep  answered  unto  deep." 
In  the  presence  of  such  need  I  learned  the  clearest  lesson 
of  my  life,  ''  For  this  is  the  message  that  ye  heard  from 
the  beginning,  that  ye  should  love  one  another." 

245 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

Sucli  a  testimony  is  certainly  not  to  be  dises- 
teemed,  and  its  suggestive  value  cannot  easily  be 
overestimated.  And  for  my  purpose  now  it  is 
preeminently  of  value  as  indicating,  not  alone  the 
power  of  individual  effort  and  sympathy,  but  the 
rewards  of  it.  To  know  that  one  has  been  privi- 
leged to  be  the  means,  if  not  of  entirely  reclaim- 
ing, at  least  of  reawakening  some  lost  life  to  cour- 
age and  self-control  and  hope  and  faith  in  Grod 
and  in  its  fellows — this  certainly  is  to  win  the 
deepest  joy  and  the  highest  happiness  of  which 
a  human  heart  is  capable. 

And  to  this  happiness,  in  the  case  of  those  who 
possess  wealth  and  leisure,  there  open  many  ave- 
nues. Not  alone  in  the  case  of  the  most  alienated 
and  least  cared  for,  but  in  its  ministry  to  youth, 
to  inexperience,  to  the  tempted  and  wronged,  there 
are  opportunities  for  the  personal  activities  of  in- 
dividual gifts  and  acquirements,  the  improvement 
of  which  in  the  case  of  any  one  of  generous 
and  noble  instincts  —  and  what  man  or  woman  is 
wholly  without  these  %  —  will  be  sure  to  issue  in 
ever-increasing  delight.  A  few  years  ago  a  cit- 
izen of  New  York,  alone  and  unaided,  set  out 
to  found  a  trade-school  for  American  boys  and 
young  men.  He  encountered  ignorant  prejudice, 
he  awakened  hostile  criticism,  he  provoked  organ- 
ized opposition ;  but  he  persevered,  and  to-day  the 
result  of  his  large  expenditure  of  time  and  money 
and  sympathy  has  issued  in  a  foundation  which 
gathers  within  its  walls  hundreds  of  youths  from 
all  parts  of  the  United  States,  which  has  dignified 

246 


The  Gospel  for  Wealth 

and  ennobled  every  handicraft  which  it  aims  to 
teach,  which  has  vindicated  the  right  of  every 
young  man  to  the  best  training  in  skilled  labor, 
and  which,  perhaps  best  of  all,  has  illustrated  the 
power  of  a  single  fraternal  and  unselfish  purpose, 
modestly  but  resolutely  pursued,  to  achieve  the 
highest  results,  and  in  doing  so  to  illustrate  the 
sure  rewards  that  await  a  noble  and  unwearied 
endeavor. 

The  opportunities  for  such  endeavor  are,  I  re- 
peat, almost  innumerable.  When  Mayor  of  New 
York,  the  Hon.  Abram  S.  Hewitt  was  led  to  inves- 
tigate the  operations  of  the  local  police  courts. 
That  in  these  and  on  the  bench  there  are  honest 
and  well-meaning  men,  I  do  not  at  all  doubt.  But 
that  the  interests  of  justice  are  best  served  by 
a  system  in  which  the  fate  of  almost  every  pris- 
oner is  practically  determined  by  the  testimony  of 
the  policeman  who  is  complainant  and  the  judge 
whose  knowledge  of  law  and  whose  instinct  of 
equity  may  easily  be  equally  imperfect,  is,  to  state 
the  case  with  the  utmost  reserve,  extremely  im- 
probable. That,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  such  an  ad- 
ministration of  the  forms  of  law  issues  frequently 
in  the  gravest  injustice,  to  those,  especially,  who 
are  most  obscure,  who  have  no  "pull"  with  the 
court,  who  can  invoke  no  neighboring  rum-seller, 
or  other  local  politician,  to  whisper  an  aside  into 
the  ear  of  the  sitting  magistrate  —  this  is  a  cer- 
tainty which  it  requires  considerable  boldness  to 
challenge. 

What  an  opportunity  here  for  the  personal  in- 
247 


Tbe  Gospel  for  Wealth 

tervention  of  those  whose  means  and  position 
make  them  strong  enough  to  insist  that  it  shall 
be  listened  to !  What  a  fine  school  for  a  young 
student  or  unemployed  practitioner  of  the  law! 
What  an  inviting  field  for  any  one,  man  or 
woman,  who  can  plead  another's  cause  or  help  to 
right  another's  wrongs !  The  Church  Club  in  the 
diocese  of  New  York  contemplates  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  lawyers'  guild  for  this  and  kindred  pur- 
poses. It  would  afford  a  rare  field  in  which 
learning  and  wealth  might  study  and  strive  to- 
gether. 

For  this  I  beheve  to  be  the  true  gospel  for 
wealth,  in  whatever  that  wealth  may  consist.  The 
world  waits  for  new  illustrations  of  that  divinest 
beneficence  which  the  great  apostle  commemo- 
rates when,  out  of  a  full  heart,  broken  and  con- 
quered by  a  resistless  spell,  he  writes,  "  the  Son  of 
Grod  who  loved  me,  and  gave  himself  for  me ! " 
This  is  the  one  secret  of  healing  the  world's  sor- 
rows and  redeeming  the  world's  lost  ones;  and, 
because  it  is,  theirs  will  forever  be  the  sweetest 
and  most  lasting  satisfactions  who,  being  rich  in 
whatever  men  count  wealth,  themselves  adminis- 
ter their  wealth,  so  giving  themselves  for  all  the 
sad  and  sorrowful  brotherhood  of  man ! 


248 


THE  CHRISTIAN  AND  THE  STATE 

ADDRESS 

Delivered  before  the  New  York  State  Association  of  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations,  at  Newburg,  N.  Y.,  February,  1896 


THE  CHRISTIAN   AND  THE   STATE 


I  AM  here  under  the  great  disadvantage  of  not 
having  heard  what  has  already  been  said  in 
this  house  this  evening.  If  I  recollect  aright  the 
order  of  exercises  for  this  evening,  it  provides  for 
a  consideration  of  the  past,  present,  and  future  of 
the  work  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion in  the  State  of  New  York.  You  know,  then, 
how  large  a  relation  that  work  sustains  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  State  which,  not  alone  because  of  its 
territorial  proportions,  its  wealth,  its  intellectual 
leadership,  but  because  it  has  been  conspicuous  in 
every  good  word  and  work  in  connection  with  in- 
terests such  as  those  for  which  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  stands,  is  rightly  entitled  to 
the  name  of  the  Empire  State.  But  when  I  have 
said  that,  you  and  I  are  here  to  remember  that 
when  we  speak  of  the  State,  we  are  speaking  of 
something  which  is  much  larger,  even,  than  the 
great  State  whose  sons  we  are,  and  in  whose 
boundaries  we  are  gathered  to-night.  That  for 
which  the  word  stands,  in  the  lowest  analysis  of 

251 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

it,  is  that  organized  form  of  life  which  forever  dif- 
ferentiates what  we  know  as  barbarism  from  what 
we  know  by  a  gracious  and  happy  experience  as 
civilization.  In  other  words,  the  State  is  a  general 
term,  and  I  am  here  to-night  not  to  speak  of  the 
Christian  in  the  State  of  New  York  alone,  but 
anywhere. 

We  should  be  sorely  tried  if,  when  we  got  over 
into  the  bounds  of  Pennsylvania,  we  found  that 
the  family  relations  —  that  things,  in  other  words, 
which  distinguish  righteous  conduct  from  un- 
righteous conduct  —  had  quite  a  different  meaning 
in  different  geographical  circumferences.  And  so 
I  say,  in  the  last  analysis,  that  when  one  speaks 
of  the  Christian  and  the  State,  one  means  by 
the  State,  I  suppose,  that  condition  of  organized 
life  which  differentiates  the  circumstances  under 
which  you  and  I  are  living  to-day  from  those  of 
some  savage  tribe.  What  is  the  condition  of  the 
savage  tribe  ?  It  is  the  condition,  undoubtedly,  of 
government  or  law,  so  far  as  government  or  law 
can  be  said  to  exist,  purely  upon  a  basis  of  physi- 
cal force.  The  earliest  organization  of  tribal  or 
savage  life  into  anything  that  can  be  called  a  so- 
cial order  can  undoubtedly  be  traced  to  the  situa- 
tion in  which  one  man  found  himself  stronger 
than  the  neighbors  by  whom  he  was  suiTounded. 
He  could  compel  obedience  both  to  his  will  and  to 
his  whim.  He  could  organize  his  little  society, 
first  of  all,  on  the  basis  of  force ;  and  undoubtedly 
out  of  such  a  condition  of  things  there  came  to  be 
what  we  call  at  the  present  time  "  mihtarism." 

2^2 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

You  pass  along  in  the  evolution  of  society,  and 
out  of  the  military  state  we  ascend  to  that  more 
definite  form  of  organized  life  which  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  regal  community.  Out  of  a  military 
rule  there  emerges  the  law  of  hereditary  descent. 
The  son  becomes  the  successor  in  power,  and  he 
in  turn  perpetuates  a  dynasty,  a  sovereignty,  and 
there  comes  what  we  know  as  the  monarchical 
system  of  government.  We  pass  on  from  step  to 
step  in  the  progi'ess  of  races  and  men,  and  we 
come  down  through  the  abuses  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings,  until  we  reach  the  period  which  marks 
the  beginning  of  our  own  national  history,  and 
recognize  the  development  of  the  republican  prin- 
ciple. Now,  what  is  the  republican  principle,  or 
the  democratic  principle!  The  democratic  prin- 
ciple is  the  principle  that  the  people  are  the 
rulers;  that  the  source  of  power  is  that  which 
comes  up  from  the  people,  and  not  down  from  the 
ruler.  That  is  the  basis  of  the  form  of  govern- 
ment under  which  you  and  I  are  living  to-night. 
Every  official  here  in  the  United  States,  whether 
he  is  an  alderman,  or  a  constable,  or  a  President, 
is  finally  your  servant  and  mine.  It  is  a  very 
good  thing  for  them  to  remember.  They  are  not 
fond  of  remembering  it,  particularly  the  policemen 
in  New  York,  for  there  they  think  they  own  us. 
But  the  truth  for  the  people  to  hold  on  to  is  the 
principle  —  my  brothers,  never  forget  it  —  of  their 
own  sovereignty.  Lincoln  stated  it  in  a  way  which 
Garfield  proved :  "  Our  government  is  a  govern- 
ment of  the  people  —  that  is  to  say,  the  people  are 

253 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

the  government;  by  the  people  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  people  are  the  source  of  authority;  for  the 
people  —  that  is  to  say,  the  final  aim  of  govern- 
ment is  the  well-being  of  the  people."  That, 
again,  is  a  truth  which  it  is  extremely  difficult  for 
the  people  who  administer  government,  even  un- 
der a  republic,  to  realize.  If  you  could  turn  an 
X-ray  upon  the  inner  consciousness  of  a  ward 
politician,  and  see  what  he  thinks — not  what  he 
says  —  when  he  is  making  a  bid  for  votes,  you 
would  find  that  the  statement  which  his  candor 
would  permit  him  to  make  is  that  it  is  nonsense : 
the  government  exists  for  his  benefit  and  his 
friends'  benefit.  Men  and  brethren,  it  is  a  concep- 
tion which  threatens  the  destruction  of  the  whole 
national  structure.  We  must  come  back  again, 
and  again,  and  again  to  the  fact  that  organized 
society  in  the  form  of  civil  government,  what  you 
and  I  understand  in  one  word  by  the  State,  exists 
finally,  not  for  the  benefit  of  anybody  who  admin- 
isters the  government,  who  is  a  paid  servant  of 
the  government,  whether  he  sits  at  the  apex  of 
the  structure,  in  the  chair  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  the  chair  of  any  local  justice 
of  the  peace,  or  police,  or  tax-collector;  but  in 
order  that  he  may  serve  his  fellow-men  in  the  re- 
lation of  service  to  the  State,  and  of  those  who 
create  a  place,  and  provide  the  salary,  and  pay 
the  wages,  for  which  he  is  to  work  for  the  State. 

A  very  valuable  book  to  which  I  should  like  to 
call  the  attention  of  my  young  brothers  to  whom  I 
speak  to-night,  called  "  The  Modern  State,  in  Re- 

254 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

lation  to  Society  and  the  Individual,"  ^  touches  this 
whole  question  with  singular  acuteness,  directness, 
and  force.  The  author  says,  in  other  words,  that 
a  very  popular  conception  of  government  is  that 
the  exercise  of  authority  is  based  upon  some 
arbitrary  principle  which  defies  law  itself ;  and  he 
points  out  that  the  teaching  of  Benton  and  others 
along  that  line  has  this  essential  defect,  that  it 
fails  to  recognize  that  there  can  be  no  law  unless 
underlying  law,  deep  down  below  it,  there  is  that 
thing  which  we  call  the  moral  consciousness  of 
men. 

Go  back  to  the  homes  in  which  you  were  born ; 
where,  in  the  face  of  some  early  transgression  of 
an  order  of  the  family  your  mother  halted  your 
young,  wayward  steps  with  the  words :  "  My  boy, 
you  must  not  do  that ;  it  is  wrong."  You  did  not 
need  to  have  explained  to  you  what  she  meant  by 
wi'ong.  The  moment  consciousness  dominates  in 
you  and  in  me,  there  comes  that  thing,  that  which 
is  born  in  the  mind  of  every  child  that  ever  drew 
the  breath  of  life,  because  that  is  meant  by  the 
image  of  Grod  in  man,  the  consciousness  of  distinc- 
tion between  righteousness  and  imrighteousness. 
Now,  of  course,  you  may  obscure  that ;  you  may 
cloud  it  by  superstition ;  you  may  debauch  it  by 
a  corrupt  life;  but  over  and  over  again  it  asserts 
itself.  One  day,  on  his  way  home  long  after  mid- 
night, a  young  undergraduate  in  a  great  university 
of  ours  met  an  old  college  professor,  who  halted 
him  as  he  was  reeling  from  the  brothel  in  which 

iBy  Paul  Leroy  Beaulieu:  London,  Swan,  Sonnenschein  &  Co. 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

he  had  been  spending  half  the  night,  staggering 
back  again  to  his  room  in  the  college,  and  said: 
"My  son,  where  are  you  going?"  The  youth  an- 
swered, "  Where  am  I  going  ?  I  don't  know  where 
I  am  going."  "You  don't  know  where  you  are 
going  ? "  said  the  old  professor.  "  Can  it  be  pos- 
sible that  you  are  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  don't 
know  the  meaning  of  the  life  you  have  been  lead- 
ing to-night  ?  Stop,  my  son ;  think  and  remember.^ 
Years  afterward  that  boy,  grown  to  manhood, 
said :  "  It  was  the  pivotal  point  of  my  life.  '  Think 
and  remember.'  Yes  through  clouded  brain,  stu- 
pe j&ed  by  drink,  there  came  back  the  image  of  my 
mother's  face ;  of  my  father's  prayers ;  of  the  clear, 
plain,  faithful  teaching  of  the  past ;  that  had  plead 
with  me  as  a  boy.  I  did  know.  All  the  while 
there  was  something  in  the  heart  that  told  me  how 
evil  was  the  life  I  was  li\dng." 

Now,  then,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  whether  you 
will  or  no,  that  consciousness  underlies  that  organ- 
ized life  which  we  call  to-day  the  State.  It  is  the 
basis  of  our  civil  government.  If  it  were  not  the 
basis  of  our  civil  government,  we  might,  instead 
of  being  the  great,  powerful  people  that  we  are,  as 
we  believe,  with  a  still  greater  future  before  us, 
add  ten  times  the  wealth,  the  achievements,  the 
accumulations  of  learning,  power  of  multitudes  of 
people,  and  yet  be  foreordained  to  final  ruin  and 
failure.  Just  as  inevitably  as,  under  God,  the  sun 
will  rise  to-morrow  morning,  the  sole  foundation 
of  the  permanence  of  a  State  is  in  the  moral  con- 
sciousness, the  quickening  sense  of  righteousness, 

2^6 


The  Cbrisfian  and  the  State 

which  abides  in  the  heart  of  its  people.  What, 
then,  my  brothers,  is  your  relation  and  mine  as 
Christian  citizens  to  the  State?  I  congratulate 
you,  Mr.  President,  on  the  singular  wisdom  of  the 
choice  which  has  been  made  of  the  title  under 
which  I  am  privileged  to  speak  to  you.  It  is  not 
"  Christianity  and  the  State,"  observe ;  it  is  "  The 
Christian  and  the  State." 

It  would  have  been  a  much  more  delicate  and 
difficult  problem  for  me  if  I  had  been  caUed  to 
discuss  "  Christianity  and  the  State  " ;  for  I  should 
then  have  had  to  distinguish  between  Christianity 
on  the  one  hand,  as  an  organized  life,  and  the 
State  on  the  other,  as  an  organized  life.  I  should 
have  to  remind  you  of  that  most  painful  picture 
of  Christian  history  when,  in  the  decadence  of  the 
Roman  power,  there  arose  an  ecclesiastical  power 
which  thrust  itself  into  the  government,  and  in  the 
name  of  Grod  undertook  to  usurp  the  functions  of 
the  State.  There  is  an  eternal  distinction  between 
the  two,  laid  down  by  the  words  of  Christ  himself, 
which  we  can  never  afford  to  forget.  When  one 
came  to  him  with  the  tribute-money,  you  re- 
member, and  asked  whether  or  no  men  should 
pay  tribute  to  Caesar,  he  forever  differentiated  re- 
ligion and  the  State  by  saying:  "Render  .  .  . 
unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's  and 
unto  Grod  the  things  that  are  God's."  But  you 
are  not  to  confuse  the  two.  No  other  lesson  is 
more  impressive  to  those  of  us  who  imagine  that 
the  kingdom  of  the  future  is  to  exist  in  the 
exaltation   of    some   ecclesiastical    system   which 

17  2S7 


The  Chmtian  and  the  State 

shall  usurp  the  functions  of  civic  government. 
No  picture  is  more  impressive,  when  one  goes,  in 
contrast  to  such  dreams,  to  the  pages  of  the  New 
Testament,  than  to  find  how  absolutely  silent,  from 
first  to  last,  was  the  divinest  voice  that  ever  spoke 
to  man  in  regard  to  what  they  call  civil  revo- 
lutions. Christ  came  into  the  world  when  the 
Roman  Empire  was  rotten  to  the  core.  He  spoke 
to  men  who  were  living  under  a  king  who  was 
infamous  for  his  vices,  scandalous  for  his  admin- 
istration of  justice,  and  yet  the  apostle  Paul  re- 
affirmed the  power  of  the  magistrate.  "  Honor  all 
men;  fear  God;  honor  the  king."  "What  king? 
Nero,  the  most  infamous  of  his  kind?"  "Yes, 
Nero;  in  so  far  as  he  incarnates  authority, — as  he 
is  the  magistrate, — you  are  to  honor  him." 

No;  we  are  forever  to  distinguish  between  the 
individual  relation  which  the  individual  Christian 
sustains  to  the  State,  and  that  absolute  disconnec- 
tion between  the  Church  and  the  State  which  is 
the  great  and  glorious  destiny,  my  brothers,  of  the 
land  in  which  you  and  I  live.  Let  us  hold  fast  to 
it.  Let  us  take  care  how  we  watch,  from  what- 
ever direction,  the  fii'st  sign  that  threatens  its 
supremacy.  The  relation  which  you  and  I  must 
bear  to  the  State,  as  containing  that  ideal  of 
righteousness  of  which  I  spoke  a  moment  ago, 
must  needs  be,  first,  and  last,  and  all  the  time,  a 
purely  individual  relation.  If  to-morrow,  here  in 
Newburg,  in  Buffalo,  in  Syi'acuse,  in  Albany,  there 
should  be  organized  a  Young  Men's  Christian  As- 
sociation ticket  on  either  side  of  the  two  great 

258 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

political  houses,  I,  for  one,  should  regard  it  as  an 
unmixed  evil.  Ours  is  a  great  deal  higher  office. 
Whether  we  belong  to  one  party  or  the  other, — 
and  just  so  long  as  human  nature  is  as  it  is,  men 
will  have  not  only  a  natural,  but  I  believe  a 
healthy  relation  to  partizanship, —  it  will  be  your 
office  and  mine  to  remember  what?  That  we  are 
Republicans? — yes,  if  we  are.  Democrats? — yes, 
if  we  are.  But  more,  if  we  are  either  Republi- 
cans or  Democrats,  when  it  comes  to  an  issue  in 
which  the  foundations  of  morals  are  threatened, 
that  we  are  the  servants  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Now,  then,  what  has  that  to  do  with  the  safety  of 
the  State?  Fu*st  of  all,  this:  That  to  any  man 
who  seeks  an  office,  or  holds  it,  or  contributes  in 
any  way  to  place  any  man  into  it,  we  put  the  ques- 
tion not  merely  whether  or  no  he  is  loyal  to  the 
party  whose  colors  he  bears,  but  whether  in  the 
discharge  of  the  duty  to  which  that  party  may 
choose  him,  he  proposes  to  put  party,  or  gain,  or 
advantage  over  and  above  his  duty  to  the  God 
whose  child  he  is,  and  to  the  Master  whose  con- 
secrated name  he  bears. 

There  is  a  very  popular  conception  that  some- 
how a  man's  obligation  of  honor  is  to  his  party, 
even  as  against  his  Master,  Christ.  I  remember 
once  hearing  Colonel  Higginson,  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, narrate  the  experience  of  an  unsuccess- 
ful campaign  which  he  made  a  few  years  ago,  in 
Boston,  for  Congress.  There  are  some  men  in  this 
church  who  will  admit,  I  presume,  that  they  are 
old  enough  to  remember  the  Civil  War.     They 

259 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

recollect,  I  am  sure,  the  story  of  Robert  Shaw's 
Black  Regiment,  down  in  the  swamps  of  Charles- 
ton; and  they  may  remember,  too,  the  splendid 
service  which  my  friend  Higginson  rendered  in  a 
very  disastrous  campaign,  in  which  Shaw  himself 
lost  his  life,  and  a  great  many  white  and  black 
men  who  served  with  him.  When  Colonel  Hig- 
ginson was  running  for  Congress  in  Boston,  on  the 
morning  of  the  election  a  friend  of  his  met  a  col- 
ored man  who  had  served  under  Higginson  in  that 
immortal  campaign.  "Ah,"  he  said,  "Tom,  are 
you  on  your  way  to  the  polls?"  "I  am,  sah." 
"  Well,  of  course  you  are  going  to  vote  for  Colo- 
nel Higginson  !  "  "  No,  sah."  "  What !  did  n't  you 
serve  under  him?"  "Yes."  "Did  n't  he  give 
your  race  the  first  opportunity  it  had  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  United  States  to  achieve  a  military 
record?"  "Yes,  sah."  "Don't  you  recollect  the 
splendid  courage  which  he  illustrated  on  the  field 
of  battle,  and  the  unwearied  tenderness  with  which 
he  watched  over  you?"  "Yes,  sah."  "Do  you 
mean,  Tom,  to  say  you  are  not  going  to  vote  for 
Colonel  Higginson?"  "No,  sah."  "Well,  I  am 
amazed !  I  should  think,  Tom,  that  every  senti- 
ment of  honor  would  compel  you  to  vote  for  a 
man  concerning  whom  you  must  always  carry  in 
your  heart  a  sense  of  your  profound  obligations  as 
a  representative  of  your  race."  "  Well,  sah,"  said 
Tom,  not  in  the  smallest  degree  abashed, "  I  don't 
agree  with  you,  sah.  It  seems  to  me  that  every 
sentiment  of  honah  constrains  me  to  vote  for  the 
gentleman  what  gave  me  five  dollahs  this  morning." 

260 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

What  a  revelation  of  the  spirit  of  much  of  mod- 
ern politics.  Over  against  it,  there  is  something 
very  inspiring  in  the  power  of  a  single  courageous, 
outspoken  voice  to  make  itself  felt,  and  to  be  a  cen- 
ter of  unselfish  service.  If  all  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations  in  this  State  should  set  out 
from  this  time  forth,  without  the  smallest  diminu- 
tion of  partizan  ardor,  to  represent  loyalty  to  prin- 
ciple, invincible  hostility  to  corruption,  in  whatever 
form,  I  believe  it  would  be  the  beginning  of  a  move- 
ment which  would  lift  the  Empire  State,  whose  sons 
we  are,  into  a  lofty  supremacy  of  power  and  exem- 
plary leadership  such  as  history  in  modern  times 
has  not  known.  And  I  want,  therefore,  before  I 
take  my  seat,  to  ask  that  the  men  who  represent 
the  administration  of  these  institutions  throughout 
this  great  State  will  strive  for  just  two  practical 
ends. 

What  is  the  educating  work  in  your  Association 
doing  in  the  matter  of  citizenship?  Do  you  re- 
member that  instinctive  and  most  noble  cry  with 
which,  when  the  apostle  is  challenged  by  the  Ro- 
man captain  as  to  his  citizenship,  he  tells  how  he 
himself  is  a  Roman  citizen  ?  And  when  the  cap- 
tain answers,  "But  I  obtained  this  freedom  with 
a  great  price,"  how  the  apostle  said — we  can  ima- 
gine how  he  lifted  his  frail  figure  to  its  full  height 
— "  But  I  was  free-born."  Ah !  my  brothers,  that 
is  a  distinction  which  you  and  I  bear  in  the 
great  State  of  which  we  are  citizens.  How  shall 
we  emancipate  men  from  the  bondage  of  ignorance 
of  party  aims  ?  First  of  all,  I  venture  to  submit, 
"*  261 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

by  a  work  which  shall  be  distinctly  and  intelli- 
gently educative.  No  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  ought  to  be  allowed  to  exist  in  the 
State  of  New  York  which  does  not  have,  every 
winter,  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  science  and 
principles  of  popular  government;  something 
which  shall  take  up  the  beginnings  and  origins 
of  government ;  what  those  things  are  which  have 
destroyed  the  greatest  States ;  what  that  precious 
jewel  is  which  every  State  must  conserve  at  the 
peril  of  its  life.     First  of  all,  the  educative  work. 

And  then  that  other  work  which  should  always 
go  along  with  the  educative  work  —  what  I  may 
call  the  inspirational  work.  I  don't  know  whether 
it  has  occurred  to  you,  gentlemen,  but  it  strikes  me 
as  a  most  felicitous  fact  that  you  are  gathered 
here  to-night  in  this  great  church  and  this  great 
throng,  as  it  were,  between  two  great  days  —  the 
days,  I  think,  that  commemorate  the  two  most 
thrilling,  and  imperial  figures  in  our  American  his- 
tory. The  other  day  you  kept  the  birthday  of 
Lincoln.  Day  after  to-morrow  you  will  keep  the 
birthday  of  Washington.  There  could  not  possibly 
be  two  more  opposite  and  dissimilar  types;  the 
one  was,  in  the  merely  conventional  sense  of  the 
term,  a  gentleman.  If  you  ever  go  to  England,  go 
to  Yorkshire,  and  get  a  sense  of  what  an  old  and 
honest  family  Washington  came  from;  one  with 
all  the  advantages  of  high  station,  culture  and  fine 
breeding,  refinement  and  gracious  surroundings; 
unspoiled — and,  brothers,  never  forget  it — as  gra- 
cious as  the  humblest  amongst  us  all.    Will  any 

262 


The  Christian  and  the  State 

of  us  ever  forget  how,  one  day,  walking  in  the 
streets  of  Philadelphia  with  a  friend,  and  meeting 
a  negro  who  bore  upon  his  shoulder  a  huge  and 
heavy  burden,  Washington  stepped  off  the  pave- 
ment into  the  then  muddy  and  unpaved  street 
until  the  negro  had  gone  by?  "What  did  you 
do  that  for?"  said  the  friend.  "Why  did  you 
allow  that  darky  to  crowd  you  off  the  pavement  ?  " 
"  Crowd  me  off  the  pavement  f "  said  Washington ; 
"what  am  I  and  what  is  he?  Look  at  his  bent 
shoulders.  Look  at  the  perspiration  streaming 
from  his  brow.  Think  of  the  hard  lines  of  that 
man's  life.  Ah,  my  friend,  respect  the  hurdenedJ^ 
A  great  lesson,  my  brothers.  Whether  with 
wealth,  or  whatever  makes  a  privileged  class,  re- 
spect the  burdened. 

And  then,  that  other;  that  singular,  and,  as  I 
think,  in  many  ways  incomparable  character,  of 
whom,  whenever  anybody  tells  something  more 
about  his  young  life,  you  get  a  sense  of  how  fine 
and  high,  amid  all  its  poverty  and  hardship,  it 
was;  how  truly  knightly  and  how  truly  noble  that 
other  —  our  own  Lincoln ! 

What  was  it  that  made  these  two  men  great; 
one  with  inheritances  to  make  greatness  of  an  ex- 
ternal kind ;  the  other  with  only  the  simple  rug- 
gedness  of  a  great  character?  What  but  this?  That 
each  one  of  them  held  himself,  first  of  all,  as  a  ser- 
vant of  the  Power  above  him,  and  sitting  in  the 
high  chair  of  state,  sat  there  remembering  always 
first  that  he  was  the  servant  of  the  people,  and  that 
because  he  was  the  servant  of  God. 

263 


THE  HIGHER  USES  OF  AN  EXPOSITION 

Published  in  "The  Forum,"  October,  1892 


THE  HIGHER  USES  OF  AN 
EXPOSITION 


THE  action  of  Congress  in  closing  the  Colum- 
bian Exposition  on  Sunday  probably  expressed 
the  sentiment  of  the  majority  of  those  whom  Con- 
gress represents.  People  who  live  in  cities,  and 
especially  those  who  live  in  cities  of  which  the 
population  is  largely  or  considerably  foreign,  are 
disposed  to  believe  that  of  late  years  a  decided 
change  of  sentiment  has  taken  place  as  to  the 
mode  of  the  observance  of  Sunday,  and  in  favor  of 
the  relaxation  of  those  legal  restrictions  by  means 
of  which  it  is  supposed  to  be  protected.  In  cities 
this  is  undoubtedly  true.  Two  causes  have  co- 
operated, whether  in  New  York,  Boston,  Chicago, 
or  in  other  communities  of  which  these  are  more 
or  less  typical,  to  bring  about  such  a  change. 
One  of  these  has  been  the  large  immigration  of 
those  from  other  lands  to  whom  the  American 
idea  of  Sunday  is  at  once  unintelligible  and  dis- 
tasteful. The  other  cause  has  been  the  usage  and 
example  of  people,  claiming  social  precedence,  who, 

267 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

whether  from  personal  preference  or  the  influence 
of  foreign  customs,  have  chosen  to  disregard  the 
traditions  in  which  they  were  nurtured. 

But  these,  after  all,  are  not  nearly  so  represen- 
tative of  the  American  sentiment  concerning  Sun- 
day as  is  commonly  supposed.  There  are,  indeed, 
parts  of  the  country  where,  as  in  New  Orleans, 
Sunday  usages  have  always  been  more  nearly 
European  than  American ;  and  there  are  probably 
no  large  towns  where  the  stricter  laws  of  earlier 
days  could  be  reenacted,  or,  if  unrepealed,  could 
be  enforced.  There  has  been,  in  fact,  no  more  sig- 
nificant illustration  of  the  impotence  of  legislation, 
apart  from  the  sustaining  power  of  public  senti- 
ment, than  in  this  connection. 

But  the  cities  are  not  the  country,  nor  may  we 
generalize  hastily  from  the  former  to  the  latter. 
Not  a  great  while  ago  a  convention  of  thirty  thou- 
sand delegates  of  the  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor 
assembled  in  New  York,  which  in  regard  to  the 
closing  of  the  Exposition  on  Sunday  expressed  it- 
self with  most  emphatic  unanimity.  The  conven- 
tion was  a  very  impressive  and  a  very  suggestive 
assemblage.  Anybody  who  had  been  bold  enough 
to  disparage  its  character  or  undervalue  its  sig- 
nificance would  have  simply  made  himself  ridicu- 
lous. The  press,  that  eager  echo  of  the  sentiment  of 
the  moment,  treated  it  —  and  this  was  true  even 
of  the  most  disreputable  newspapers — with  scru- 
pulous respect.  And  the  reason  was  plain  enough. 
Not  alone  the  convention,  but  the  constituency 
which  it  represented,  was  too  large  and  too  poten- 

268 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

tial  to  be  derided  or  disesteemed.  For  better  or 
worse,  it  was  distinctly  representative  of  a  wide- 
spread American  enthusiasm ;  and  this,  indeed,  to 
any  one  who  stopped  long  enough  to  consider  its 
meaning,  was  the  essence  of  it.  It  was  enthusiasm 
in  the  interest  of  what  may  be  called  the  working 
sentiment  of  Christianity,  and  it  was  American 
enthusiasm.  As  one  met  the  deputies,  or  read 
their  addresses,  or  noted  the  drift  of  their  confer- 
ences, it  was  refreshingly  evident  that  they  were 
the  product  of  a  spirit  indigenous  to  the  soil, 
without  foreign  alloy,  unshackled  by  any  subcon- 
sciousness of  foreign  allegiance,  profoundly  per- 
suaded of  the  competency  of  Americans  to  do 
their  own  thinking  and  give  their  own  mot  d'ordre. 
And  as  such  it  was  undoubtedly,  in  one  sense,  the 
best  expression  of  many  of  the  deepest  convic- 
tions of  some  fifty  millions  of  people. 

Does  it  follow,  then,  that  most  of  these  fifty 
millions  of  people  adhere  to  that  which  may  be 
said  to  be  our  inherited  national  idea  about  Sun- 
day f  I  do  not  see  how  this  can  be  denied ;  cer- 
tainly the  action  of  Congress  can  hardly  be 
construed  in  any  other  way.  No  one  seriously 
believes  that  the  votes  in  the  Senate  and  House 
of  Representatives  represented,  as  has  been  ami- 
ably insinuated,  the  "  pull "  of  the  Chicago  liquor- 
dealers,  eager  to  close  the  Exposition  on  Sunday, 
that  they  might  crowd  their  bar-rooms  and  beer- 
saloons  with  the  people  turned  away  from  it.  But 
nobody,  I  imagine,  will  care,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
maintain  that  the  vote  in  Congress  represented  the 

269 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

personal  conviction  or  the  individual  practice  of 
all  those  who  cast  it.  It  was  eminently  a  case 
where  the  representative  function  of  a  legislator 
came  into  play;  and  it  is  easy,  without  any  small- 
est disrespect  to  senators  or  representatives,  to 
conceive  that  any  one  of  them  might  argue :  "  To 
me  the  Sunday  question  is  as  yet  indifferent  or 
obscure.  In  either  case,  I  am  not  personally  pre- 
pared to  take  decided  ground  with  reference  to  it. 
But  with  my  constituents  it  is  a  matter  of  pro- 
found conviction ;  and  I  am  bound  to  respect  their 
convictions,  and  to  be  influenced  by  them,  unless 
I  have  different  convictions  of  my  own  which  are 
equally  profound."  It  seems  very  probable  that 
the  congressional  vote  thus  pretty  accurately  rep- 
resented this  popular  conviction,  reckoned  in  the 
large. 

But  the  question  still  remains:  Is  that  senti- 
ment sound  and  wise,  and  are  the  results  of  its 
latest  expression  likely  to  conserve  the  institu- 
tion which  it  professes  so  sacredly  to  cherish  ?  It 
would  seem  to  be  an  opportune  moment,  especially 
in  the  light  of  the  recent  action  at  Washington,  to 
consider  such  a  question. 

In  doing  so,  however,  it  must  first  be  remem- 
bered that  this  institution  of  Sunday,  as  we  have 
it  in  America,  consists  of  two  things  —  the  institu- 
tion itself,  and  its  modern  accretions.  By  these 
last  I  mean  all  that  Sunday  has  taken  on  of  more 
precise  and  more  austere  restriction  in  connection 
with  the  Puritan  movement,  whether  in  England 
or  in  America.    I  am  not  here  concerned  with  the 

270 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

provocation  for  those  restrictions  which  the  Puri- 
tans and  their  successors  have  from  time  to  time 
found  in  that  tendency  to  degrade  and  secular- 
ize the  day,  whether  in  England  or  elsewhere,  of 
which  Christendom  has  seen  not  a  little.  That 
there  was  such  provocation  no  one  who  deals  fairly 
with  the  history  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  can  deny;  and  it  is  impossible  not  to 
admh'e  the  heroic  zeal  of  those  who,  to  rescue  from 
profane  and  unworthy  uses  a  day  consecrated  to 
the  commemoration  of  the  supreme  fact  of  the 
Christian  faith,  bound  upon  themselves  a  yoke  in 
the  matter  of  its  observance  which  was  neither 
light  nor  easy.  But  the  fact  still  remains  that 
their  warrant  for  what  they  did,  whether  we  look 
for  it  in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament,  or  in  the 
traditions  of  Catholic  Christendom,  was  neither 
substantial  nor  sufficient.  Of  course,  as  we  know, 
they  went  for  that  warrant  to  that  older  institu- 
tion of  the  Sabbath  which  the  First  Day  of  the 
week,  with  its  larger  freedom,  was  early  ordained 
to  supersede.  How  large  that  freedom  was,  the 
language  of  that  greatest  of  the  apostles  to  the 
Gentiles,  who  wrote  to  Colossae,  "  Let  no  man  .  .  . 
judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink,  or  in  respect  of  an 
holy  day,  or  of  the  new  moon,  or  of  the  sahhath  days,^^^ 
sufficiently  indicates.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  while  the  Christian  First  Day,  or  Sunday,  took 
over  from  the  Sabbath  its  venerable  conception  of 
a  rest-day,  with  its  scarcely  less  venerable  tradi- 
tions of  religious  worship,  it  dismissed  on  the  one 

1  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  ii.  16. 
271 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

hand  that  earlier  strictness  that  would  not  on  the 
Sabbath  day  pull  an  ox  or  an  ass  from  the  pit  into 
which  it  had  fallen/  nor  pluck  an  ear  of  corn^ 
even  to  satisfy  the  most  urgent  demands  of  hun- 
ger ;  while,  on  the  other,  it  imported  into  the  day 
an  element  of  gladness  and  festivity  which  made 
the  Sunday  of  primitive  Christianity  in  many  re- 
spects not  unlike  our  own  Christmas  or  Thanks- 
giving Day.  What  we  who  are  native  to  America 
are  most  of  all  familiar  with  —  its  asceticism  of  do- 
mestic usage,  its  absolute  prohibition  not  merely 
of  amusement,  but  of  recreation  (the  two  are  very 
different  things),  on  Sunday,  its  dreary  denial  even 
of  innocent  occupations,  its  stern  rebuke  of  the 
gaiety  and  mirthfulness  of  children,  its  hard  con- 
striction of  the  domestic  affections  and  of  neigh- 
borly courtesies — by  none  of  these  characteristics 
were  the  Sundays  of  the  first  Christian  centuries 
distinguished.  A  true  picture  of  them  may  by 
anticipation  be  found  in  the  pages  of  the  New 
Testament  itself,  where  Christ  is  found  on  one 
Sabbath  day  healing  a  paralytic,  much  to  the  dis- 
gust of  a  ruler  of  the  synagogue,  who  roundly  de- 
nounces him;  or  on  another  dining  with  a  Phari- 
see, and  making  this  kindly  intercourse  the  means 
of  the  loftiest  teaching,  thus  expressively  pro- 
claiming that  humaner  law  which  was  to  govern 
men  henceforth  in  their  observance  of  all  holy 
days,  whether  Sabbaths  or  Sundays. 

It  is  difficult  to  see,  looking  at  that  law  quite 
apart  from  the  Being  who  promulgated  it,  how 

1  Gospel  of  St.  Luke,  xiv.  5.  2  Ibid.,  vi.  1. 

272 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

it  could  be  improved.  In  many  ways  and  in 
strangely  different  garbs  have  different  commu- 
nions or  societies  striven  to  reintroduce,  as  the 
highest  type  of  religion  and  the  finest  flower  of 
character,  a  rule  of  prohibitive  asceticism  which 
Christ,  in  his  own  person,  once  and  forever  dis- 
missed. Now  by  seclusion,  now  by  abstinence, 
and  now  again  by  vows  of  celibacy,  of  silence,  of 
poverty,  or  of  self-annihilation,  have  men  sought 
to  produce  those  choicer  frtdts  of  conduct  which 
have  never  ripened  save  as  men  have  faced  life 
and  conquered  it  —  have  "  used  the  world  as  not 
abusing  it."  And  so  it  will  be  whether  the  ques- 
tion concern  the  observance  of  a  day,  the  mastery 
of  the  appetites,  or  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
will.  In  one  word,  we  shall  get  a  good  Sunday  in 
America  when  men  learn  to  recognize  its  meaning 
and  its  uses  —  not  when  we  have  closed  aU  the 
doors  which,  if  open,  might  help  to  teach  them 
that  lesson. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  door  of  a  library  were 
one  of  those  doors;  the  door  of  a  well-arranged 
and  well-equipped  museum  another;  the  door  of 
a  really  worthy  picture-gallery  still  another.  And 
for  what  do  these  exist?  Is  it  not  for  their  en- 
lightening, refining,  and  instructive  influence  ?  In 
all  these  temples  one  may  read  history.  And  the 
story  of  the  world  and  of  the  races  that  have  lived 
in  it  is  part  of  the  nobler  and  worthier  education 
of  man.  It  is  a  part  of  that  education  which  is 
closely  allied  to  the  highest  education  of  all,  which 
is  his  spiritual  education.    For  in  one  aspect  of  it 

18  ^  273 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

one  cannot  look  at  the  humblest  piece  of  human 
handiwork  without  seeing  in  it  how  patience  and 
the  painstaking  study  of  methods  and  materials 
have  married  themselves  in  some  contrivance  in 
which  the  happy  issue  of  the  perfected  whole  is 
nevertheless  not  so  interesting  as  the  courage  and 
ingenuity  —  the  hard  fight  with  manifold  obstacles 
—  that  produced  it.  And  these  qualities,  though 
they  are  not  the  finest  in  human  nature,  are 
among  them.  Courage  and  patience  and  the 
steadfast  purpose  that  will  not  be  beaten ;  indus- 
try, the  studious  questioning  of  the  forces  of  na- 
ture, or  the  clever  harnessing  of  them  to  the  harder 
tasks  of  life  —  all  these  are  qualities  that  need,  un- 
doubtedly, still  other  and  nobler  qualities  to  in- 
spire and  direct  them.  But  an  intelligent  knowledge 
of  himself  and  his  environment  is  a  primal  need  of 
man,  and  surely  it  can  be  no  incongruous  thing  to 
teach  men  to  think,  to  observe,  to  compare  —  in 
one  word,  in  any  inferior  realm  of  knowledge  to 
know;  even  though  they  will  still  need  supremely 
to  be  taught  to  know  in  the  highest  realm  of  all. 

And  this  would  seem  to  indicate  that,  consis- 
tently with  the  scrupulous  observance  of  Sunday 
as  a  day  of  rest,  a  great  assemblage  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  human  art  and  industry  might  wisely  be 
made  a  silent  school-room  of  the  progress  of  hu- 
man civilization.  Let  the  Columbian  Exposition 
proclaim  by  the  hush  of  all  its  varied  traffic  and 
machinery  —  no  wheel  turning,  no  engine  moving, 
no  booth  or  counter  open  to  buyer  or  seller,  no 
sign  or  sound  of  business  through  all  its  long  ave- 

274 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

nues/  and  better  still,  by  its  doors  closed  till  the 
morning  hours  of  every  Sunday  are  ended  —  that 
the  American  people  believe  in  a  day  of  rest.  But 
if  there  be  those  who  would  later  seek  its  precincts 
to  look,  it  may  be,  more  closely  at  the  handiwork 
of  man,  to  study  the  progi*ess  of  the  race  in  the 
story  of  its  artistic  and  industrial  and  mechanical 
achievements,  and  to  recognize  thus,  it  may  easily 
be,  in  the  study  of  such  achievements,  with  Job, 
that "  there  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  that  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Almighty  giveth  him  understanding" 
—  that  certainly  can  be  no  unworthy  use  of  some 
hours  of  our  America's  rest-day. 

And  all  this  without  reference  to  that  alterna- 
tive which,  nevertheless,  one  cannot  quite  leave 
out  of  sight.  There  has  been  a  very  persistent 
effort  to  ridicule  the  idea  that  saloon-keepers  and 
their  like,  and  worse,  in  Chicago,  would  be  friendly 
to  the  closing  of  the  Exposition  on  Sunday,  since 
it  would  force  the  crowds  of  idle  strangers  into 
their  doors,  either  front  or  rear.  But  such  ridi- 
cule is  very  ill-timed  in  view  of  facts  that  are 
abundantly  well  known  as  to  the  use  that  people 
shut  out  from  the  Exposition  made  of  their  Sun- 
day afternoons  in  Philadelphia.  It  may  indeed  be 
urged  by  those  who  are  contending  for  the  closing 
of  the  Exposition  throughout  Sunday  that  they 
are  not  responsible  for  what  people  do  with  them- 
selves so  long  as  they  keep  them  out  of  the  Ex- 
position.    But  it  would  seem  as  if  it  might  with 

1  This,  if  I  am  correctly  informed,  was  the  rule  with  the  British 
and  American  exhibits  in  the  case  of  the  Paris  Exposition. 

27s 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

some  pertinency  be  retorted  that  if  they  are  sim- 
ply devoting  themselves  to  a  work  of  exclusion,  it 
would  be  better  worth  while  to  shut  up  some  other 
doors  before  they  troubled  themselves  to  close 
those  of  the  Exposition. 

For,  after  all,  as  this  position  of  the  all-day-Sun- 
day closers  implies,  it  is  not  a  question  of  doing 
the  best  possible  thing,  but  of  doing  the  best  prac- 
ticable thing.  And  as  to  what  that  is  there  would 
seem  to  be  very  little  doubt.  The  argument  is 
constantly  used,  and  it  is  one  by  which  I  must 
own  that  I  have  myself  been  greatly  influenced  in 
considering  the  question  of  particular  relaxations 
of  a  stricter  Sunday  usage  in  a  great  city  —  "If 
you  begin  to  make  concessions,  you  never  can  tell 
where  you  will  stop."  But  there  would  seem  to 
be  two  answers  to  such  a  proposition  as  that.  The 
first  obviously  is,  "  Are  the  concessions  demanded 
intrinsically  reasonable  and  a  just  reaction  from 
previous  over-strictness?"  We  may  well  remem- 
ber that  if  to-day  there  is  in  certain  quarters 
among  Americans  too  much  disregard  of  Sunday, 
it  is  in  part  at  least  because  once  upon  the  shoul- 
ders of  those  from  whom  these  very  Americans 
are  descended  there  was  bound  a  burden  which 
neither  they  nor  their  fathers  were  able  to  bear; 
and  that  the  lawlessness  of  to-day  is  the  logical 
consequence  of  the  intolerable  and  unwarranted 
restraints  of  other  days.  A  venerable  ecclesiastic 
was  once  inveighing  with  much  eloquence  against 
what  he  considered  undue  relaxations  in  certain 
directions,  and  concluded  by  saying:   "Brethren, 

276 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

there  are  some  people  who  are  constantly  going 
about  unscrewing  things.  They  never  can  rest 
without  loosening  something  here,  and  letting  go 
something  there,  and  easing  up  something  or  other 
wherever  they  get  a  chance.  Brethren,  be  afraid 
of  such  people !  They  are  of  all  others  the  most 
dangerous!"  Said  a  clever  and  experienced  me- 
chanical engineer  who  listened  to  the  philippic 
and  who  knew  a  little  Latin ;  "  Dear  old  bishop ! 
What  a  pity  he  did  not  remember  the  motto,  Ne 
sutor  ultra  crepidam!  More  mischief  is  done  by 
screwing  things  up  too  tight,  sometimes,  than  was 
ever  done  by  easing  a  bearing."  And  he  was  wiser 
than  he  knew. 

And  still  further  and  preeminently  it  should  be 
considered  that  what  may  be  called  the  Christian 
theory  of  life  as  enunciated  by  Christ  himself  de- 
mands, most  of  all,  as  between  things  tolerable, 
permissible,  and  prohibited,  what  I  may  call  the 
habit  of  discrimination.  It  does  not  follow,  there- 
fore, that  where  one  makes  a  righteous  concession 
he  never  can  tell  where  he  will  stop.  To  know 
where  to  stop  is,  in  one  sense,  of  the  very  essence 
of  his  Christian  liberty  and  responsibility.  "I 
speak  as  unto  wise  men,"  says  the  apostle,  ^^  judge 
2/e."  A  man  need  not  wear  a  Quaker  coat  in  order 
to  observe  a  decent  simplicity  in  the  matter  of 
dress.  A  man  need  not  take  a  monastic  vow  of 
celibacy  or  poverty  in  order  to  live  a  pure  and  un- 
selfish life.  He  is  to  deal  with  the  question  of  his 
duty  to  money,  to  society,  to  friendship,  in  accor- 
dance with  the  dictates  of  an  enlightened  judgment 


18* 


277 


The  Higher  Uses  of  an  Exposition 

and  conscience.  And  so  he  must  do  with,  the  Sun- 
day question.  He  has  not  suddenly  become  a  god- 
less and  profane  person  because  he  differs  with 
other  equally  honest  and  conscientious  people  about 
Sunday,  or  because  he  holds  that  there  are  in- 
herited views  as  to  the  observance  of  that  day 
which  cannot  by  any  process  of  ingenuity  be  read 
into  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament,  nor  into  any 
canon  by  which  Christendom  is  bound  either  in  its 
interpretation  of  that  book  or  of  the  Lord's  Day. 
Those  inherited  views,  however  dear  to  some  of 
us,  have  just  so  much  weight  as  can  be  gained  for 
them  from  the  study  of  the  history  of  the  origin 
and  institution  of  the  Christian  Sunday,  and  no 
more.  And  if  such  a  study  makes  plain  to  us  the 
value  of  a  day  of  rest,  of  worship,  and  no  less  of  a 
cheerful  and  manly  exercise  of  our  Christian  lib- 
erty in  things  indifferent  in  the  observance  of  such 
a  day,  we  may  wisely  consider  whether  a  Sunday 
wisely  guarded  for  such  uses  is  not  the  best  Sun- 
day alike  for  Exposition  times  and  for  all  times. 


278 


A   HUNDRED  AMERICAN  YEARS 

ADDRESS 

Delivered   at   the   Service    Commemorative    of   the    One-Hundredth 
Anniversary  of  the  Consecration  of  the  First  Bishops 
FOR  America,  by  Bishops  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, IN  the  Chapel  of  Lambeth  Palace, 
London,  February  4,  1887 


A  HUNDRED  AMERICAN  YEARS 


WE  are  here  to-day  to  commemorate  the  one- 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  gift  of  the 
episcopate  by  the  Church  of  England  to  the 
United  States  of  America.  My  countrymen  who 
have  come  here  this  morning,  and  you  who  are 
his  spiritual  children,  would  have  been  glad  if  the 
words  to  be  said  in  connection  with  this  occasion 
could  have  been  spoken  by  him  who  is  the  head 
of  the  Anglican  communion,  and  to  whom  church- 
men in  both  hemispheres  are  wont  to  look  with 
equal  loyalty  and  veneration.  Since  this,  how- 
ever, may  not  be,  let  me  lighten  the  strain  upon 
your  patience  by  saying  that  it  shall  be  as  brief  as 
I  can  make  it. 

It  belongs  to  me,  first  of  all,  to  acknowledge,  as 
I  do  with  sincere  gratitude,  the  courtesy  of  his 
Grrace  the  Archbishop  in  arranging  for  this  com- 
memorative service  at  a  cost  of  personal  sacrifice 
and  inconvenience  how  great  one  can  at  least 
partly  know  who  has  been  pressed  upon  by  simi- 
lar, though    far    lighter   burdens.    The   children 

281 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

gi'ow  to  man's  estate,  and  pass  out  from  under 
the  father's  roof,  but  only  to  turn  back  again  to 
the  parental  knee,  too  often  bringing  with  them 
their  own  little  interests  and  memories,  as  though 
these  were  of  substantial  weight  and  consequence. 
Happy  would  be  the  world  if  all  fathers  thus  in- 
truded upon  were  as  patient  as  he  to  whom  some 
of  us  first  came,  now  nearly  ten  years  ago,  or  as 
his  successor,  who  to-day  sits  in  the  throne  of 
Canterbmy,  and  who  by  his  invariable  courtesy 
and  kindness  to  his  large  family  beyond  the  sea 
has  already  made  his  name  a  perfume  in  many  an 
American  home ! 

It  may  be  urged,  however,  that  such  kindness 
does  not  excuse  a  fussy  and  exacting  obtrusive- 
ness,  but  ought  the  rather  to  hinder  and  discour- 
age it;  and  one  can  imagine  the  mild  surprise 
with  which  kinsmen  who  count  their  ecclesiastical 
history  by  nearly  a  score  of  centuries,  look  on  at 
a  new  people  who  make  so  much  of  the  comple- 
tion of  their  first  hundred  years.  The  wonder  is 
not  unnatural,  certainly,  in  this  presence,  nor  in 
this  ancient  city.  When  one  stands  in  the  nobly 
restored  choir  of  St.  Bartholomew's,  Smithfield, 
and  is  reminded  that  its  beginnings  go  back  to 
the  eleventh  century,  or  is  told  of  those  Greek 
coins  dug  up  from  among  its  foundations,  and 
then  of  the  tradition  of  the  visit  of  those  Byzan- 
tine princes  from  whom  it  has  been  suggested 
that  its  unique  and  strongly  marked  Oriental  fea- 
tures of  architecture  may  have  been  derived,  he  is 
not  surprised  that  a  church  or  a  nation  only  a  hun- 

282 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

dred  years  old  seems  to  many  too  new  to  have  a 
history,  or,  if  it  has  one,  to  have  one  that  is  worth 
remembering. 

But  we  who  are  the  children  of  the  Church  of 
England  may  at  least  plead  that  for  us  these  hun- 
dred years  stand  for  a  new  creation.  At  the  close 
of  our  revolutionary  war  the  church  in  America 
was  not  merely  enfeebled,  it  was  almost  extinct. 
In  a  hostile  atmosphere,  of  divided  counsels,  its 
ministers  largely  withdrawn  from  it  to  the  mother- 
country,  there  seemed  nothing  for  it  but  to  die. 
That  it  did  not  die,  that  it  lived  and  throve  and 
grew,  and  that  it  has  made  a  place  in  the  respect 
and  affections  of  multitudes  who  are  not  of  its 
fold,  is  not  less  true  than  that  if  any  one  a  hundred 
years  ago  had  so  predicted  of  it,  he  would  have 
been  generally  laughed  to  scorn.  And  that  its 
growth  has  been  so  rapid,  and  its  history  so  peace- 
ful, has  been  largely  due,  under  God,  to  one  of 
the  two  men  who  a  hundred  years  ago  were 
consecrated  at  yonder  altar. 

On  the  20th  of  November,  1786,  there  landed  in 
Falmouth  two  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, both  natives  of  her  American  colonies,  who 
had  sailed  from  New  York  eighteen  days  before. 
One  of  these  was  Dr.  William  White,  rector  of 
Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  and  bishop-elect  of 
Pennsylvania.  Dr.  White  had  been  educated  for 
the  ministry  in  England,  and  ordained  to  the  di- 
aconate  and  priesthood  respectively,  some  seven- 
teen years  earlier,  by  the  Bishop  of  Norwich,  Dr. 
Yonge,  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  Dr.  Terrick. 

283 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

The  other  clergyman  was  Dr.  Samuel  Provoost, 
rector  of  Trinity  Church,  New  York,  and  bishop- 
elect  of  the  diocese  of  New  York.  He  was  a  na- 
tive of  New  York,  having  been  born  there  in  the 
year  1742,  and  educated  in  England  at  St.  Peter's 
College,  Cambridge.  Having  been  ordained  dea- 
con in  1766  by  Dr.  Terrick,  Bishop  of  London, 
and  priest  in  the  same  year,  at  the  Chapel  Royal, 
Whitehall,  by  Dr.  Edmund  Keene,  Bishop  of  Ches- 
ter, he  returned  to  America,  and  was  elected  its 
bishop  by  the  convention  of  the  diocese  of  New 
York  in  1786.  Dr.  Provoost  during  the  revo- 
lutionary war  was  a  conspicuous  patriot,  or 
a  conspicuous  rebel,  according  as  judged  from 
the  American  or  the  English  point  of  view,  and 
during  the  struggle  of  the  colonists  had  mainly 
lived  in  retirement  from  ministerial  duty.  He 
was  a  man  of  varied  learning,  and  prompt  and 
decided  in  action. 

The  urgent  importance  of  the  consecration  of 
these  two  presbyters  was  by  this  time  abundantly 
evident  to  the  authorities  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. Indeed,  the  question  of  an  episcopate  for 
America  had  engaged  their  attention  at  different 
times  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century,  and  it  con- 
tributes still  more  to  endear  to  American  church- 
men many  eminent  names  in  the  Anglican  episco- 
pate, that  they  are  so  conspicuously  associated 
with  labors  and  gifts  to  this  end.  As  early  as 
1638  plans  had  been  matured  for  sending  a  Bishop 
to  the  "American  plantations,"  which,  however, 
were  frustrated  by  the  outbreak  of  the  troubles  in 

284 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

Scotland.  In  1673  the  Eev.  Dr.  Alexander  Murray- 
was  nominated  for  that  purpose  by  Lord  Chan- 
cellor Clarendon  and  approved  by  King  Charles 
II.;  but  again  the  plan  was  defeated  by  circum- 
stances beyond  control.  Yet  again,  in  1713,  Queen 
Anne  responded  favorably  to  the  request  of  that 
venerable  society  to  which  the  American  Church 
owes,  and  gratefully  owns,  so  large  a  debt  for  the 
appointment  of  bishops  for  the  colonies,  and  the 
society  actually  purchased  a  residence  for  a  bishop 
at  Burlington,  in  New  Jersey;  but  the  death  of 
the  good  Queen  put  an  end  to  the  whole  matter. 
Later  still.  Dr.  Gibson,  Bishop  of  London,  Arch- 
bishops Seeker  and  Tillotson,  Bishops  Louth,  But- 
ler, Benson,  Sherlock,  and  Terrick,  all  of  them 
at  various  times,  and  some  of  them  by  personal 
munificence,  testified  to  their  sense  of  the  great 
need  to  be  supplied. 

The  rebellion  of  the  colonies  put  a  stop  to  these 
efforts,  and  when  the  war  had  ended  the  relations 
of  the  American  people  to  the  Church  of  England 
were  wholly  altered.  Many  of  the  loyal  clergy 
returned  to  their  mother-country;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  those  who  remained  behind  found 
themselves  in  an  atmosphere  bitterly  antagonistic. 
In  the  popular  mind  the  church  was  associated 
with  a  yoke  that  had  been  broken,  and  with 
traditions  which  to  republican  tastes  were  most 
offensive.  The  proposal  to  introduce  bishops  into 
America  was  confused,  whether  purposely  or  no 
I  will  not  undertake  to  say,  with  a  design  to  erect 
among  an  independent  people  a  foreign  hierarchy. 

28s 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

The  same  spirit  which,  in  the  breasts  of  English- 
men long  before,  and  on  English  soil,  resented  an 
alien  ecclesiastical  domination,  found  a  new  if  mis- 
taken expression  among  their  children;  and  the 
Puritan  dread  of  prelatical  invasion  took  on  forms 
of  protest  as  violent,  sometimes,  as  they  were  gro- 
tesque. This  had,  indeed,  been  the  case  with  the 
Puritans  of  New  England  and  elsewhere  before 
the  separation ;  and  that  event,  instead  of  allaying 
such  a  spirit,  in  many  instances  intensified  it. 

Again,  there  were  those  who  believed  that  the 
issue  of  the  struggle  in  America  was  not  yet  finally 
settled.  They  believed  that  the  colonies  might 
yet  be  won,  or  coerced,  to  return  to  their  alle- 
giance, and  they  pointed  out  the  embarrassments 
which  would  inevitably  arise  out  of  the  creation 
by  the  Church  of  England  of  an  independent 
episcopate  in  America.  Finally,  there  was  the 
still  graver  problem  of  the  due  guardianship  of 
the  faith.  When  the  revolutionary  war  had  ended, 
the  churchmen  of  America,  with  the  exception 
of  some  of  those  in  New  England,  set  about  the 
formation  of  an  independent  organization.  In 
this,  so  far  as  its  independence  of  civil  control  and 
its  admission  of  the  laity  to  a  share  in  its  leg- 
islative counsels  were  concerned,  they  departed 
widely  from  the  traditions  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. But  they  did  more.  They  were  not  wholly 
superior  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  that  tended 
toward  relaxation,  nay,  laxity,  in  matters  of  the 
faith.  And  so  the  revision  of  the  Prayer-book, 
which   was   early  undertaken    in    the   American 

286 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

Church,  proceeded  so  far,  at  one  time,  as  to 
threaten  the  excision  not  only  of  certain  of  the 
Articles,  but  also  of  the  Athanasian  and  Nicene 
creeds,  and  even  of  an  article  in  the  Apostles' 
Creed.  At  this  point,  that  gentle  but  firm  refusal 
to  proceed  in  the  matter  of  the  gift  of  the  episco- 
pate which  marked  the  action  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  and  his  associates  upon  the  bench 
of  Bishops  was  of  inestimable  value.  The  issue 
of  their  action  is  well  known.  The  church  in 
America  yielded,  after  a  brief  hesitation;  and 
though  the  bishops  did  not  secure  quite  all  that 
they  desired,  Anglican  Christendom  may  well  re- 
joice that  they  were  unwilling  to  be  contented 
with  less.  Looking  back  upon  their  action  to-day, 
it  deserves  to  be  said  —  and  though  I  could  wish 
that  it  might  have  been  said  by  a  voice  which 
would  have  carried  far  gi-eater  weight  than  mine, 
I  am  thankful  for  the  privilege  of  saying  it  in  this 
place  —  that  what  they  did,  and  the  deliberation 
with  which  they  did  it,  alike  attest  the  wisdom 
and  the  generosity  of  ecclesiastical  rulers  who 
combined  statesmanlike  prudence  with  unflinch- 
ing loyalty  to  the  faith.  Their  hesitancy,  it  is 
true,  turned  the  footsteps  of  the  ardent  Seabury 
to  the  Scottish  Church ;  and  in  1784,  three  years 
earlier  than  the  event  which  we  commemorate  to- 
day, he  had  been  consecrated  by  bishops  of  that 
church  in  an  upper  room  in  Aberdeen.  But  the 
delay  of  the  Church  of  England  in  following  that 
precedent  gave  time  for  action  in  America,  which, 
while  securing  a  great  gift  for  its  people,  guarded 

287 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

its  exercise  from  the  gravest  abuses.  It  was  a  fit- 
ting question  for  English  prelates  to  ask,  and  it 
was  no  less  fitting  to  insist  upon  its  explicit  an- 
swer—  "Not  merely  what  Church,  so  far  as  its 
nominal  designation  is  concerned,  do  you  design 
to  perpetuate  in  America,  but  in  submission  to 
what  Catholic  symbols  of  the  faith  is  it  to  be 
founded  and  maintained?"  Never  was  there  a 
land  in  which  clearness  and  definiteness  on  this 
point  were  more  urgently  demanded.  Grod  be 
praised  for  the  paternal  decision  and  patience  that 
secured  them ! 

A  few  more  words  will  complete  the  story  of 
this  day.  On  landing  in  England,  Drs.  White  and 
Provoost  waited  upon  the  American  minister,  the 
Honorable  John  Adams,  and  were  by  him  pre- 
sented to  the  Primate.  Their  consecration  was 
appointed  for  the  4th  of  February;  and  on  that 
day,  their  testimonials  having  been  submitted  and 
approved,  they  were  consecrated  in  this  chapel  by 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Dr.  John  Moore; 
the  Archbishop  of  York,  Dr.  William  Markham, 
acting  as  presenter,  and  the  Bishops  of  Bath  and 
Wells  and  Peterborough,  Drs.  Moss  and  Hinch- 
cliffe,  uniting  in  the  imposition  of  hands.  The 
chronicler  of  the  time  rather  pathetically  records 
that  ''there  was  a  very  small  congregation  present, 
composed  mainly  of  the  Archbishop's  household," 
and  adds  that  the  "newly  consecrated  Bishops 
dined  at  the  conclusion  of  the  ser\dce  with  the 
Ai'chbishop,  and  left  the  next  day  for  their  distant 
homes." 

288 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

It  may  be  well  to  add  here,  as  completing  the 
historical  sequence  in  the  matter  of  the  American 
episcopate,  that  on  the  19th  of  September,  1790, 
Dr.  James  Madison  was  consecrated  in  this  chapel 
Bishop  of  Virginia,  and  that  in  1792  Bishop  Pro- 
voost,  as  consecrator,  united  with  himself  Bishops 
White  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Seabmy  of  Connec- 
ticut, in  consecrating  Dr.  Thomas  John  Claggett 
as  the  first  Bishop  of  Maryland.  Thus  and 
thenceforward  the  English  and  Scotch  lines  of 
succession  in  America  were  united.  It  is  a  grate- 
ful recollection  to  one,  at  least,  of  those  who  have 
come  here  from  beyond  the  sea  to  take  part  in  this 
service,  that  the  scene  of  this  consecration  was 
the  city  of  New  York,  and  that  through  it  were 
united,  not  merely  the  thitherto  disassociated  and 
somewhat  antagonistic  American  episcopates,  but 
through  them  the  "  somewhat  divergent  lines  of 
Bancroft  and  Tillotson."  ^ 

It  was  a  discouraging  prospect  which  awaited 
the  newly  consecrated  bishops  on  their  return. 
In  the  convention  that  elected  White  there  had 
sat  less  than  a  score  of  clergymen,  and  lay  repre- 
sentatives from  still  fewer  parishes.  The  conven- 
tion of  the  diocese  of  New  York,  which  chose 
Provoost  for  its  bishop,  included  five  clergymen 
and  the  representatives  of  seven  parishes.  In  all 
the  thirteen  American  colonies  there  were  onlj'- 
about  200  clergymen,  and  but  few  more  congrega- 
tions. To-day,  the  original  diocese  of  Pennsyl- 
vania has  grown  into   three  dioceses,  with  five 

1  Dr.  W.  J.  Sealrary's  "  Memorial  Discourse,"  1885. 
19  289 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

bishops,  400  clergy,  300  parishes,  50,000  persons 
who  regularly  commune  at  its  altars,  and  with 
voluntary  offerings  for  the  past  year  of  a  million 
and  a  half  of  dollars,  or  £300,000.  The  diocese 
of  New  York  has  become  five  dioceses,  with  800 
clergy,  700  congregations,  over  100,000  communi- 
cants, and  with  voluntary  offerings  during  the  past 
year  of  nearly  $5,000,000  or  £1,000,000  sterling. 

During  the  same  period  of  time  the  American 
daughter,  including  all  the  dioceses,  has  multiplied 
her  three  bishops  until  they  are  seventy,  her  200 
clergy  until  they  have  become  4000,  her  parishes 
until  they  have  become  3000,  her  flocks  until  they 
include  a  cure  of  some  two  millions  of  souls,  and 
her  gifts  until  they  amounted  for  the  past  year  to 
$10,000,000.  She  has  seven  colleges  and  ten  theo- 
logical seminaries  in  various  parts  of  the  country, 
and  church  schools  for  both  sexes,  both  parochial 
and  diocesan,  in  large  numbers  and  in  almost 
every  diocese.  In  the  single  diocese  of  New  York 
she  has  four  sisterhoods,  four  hospitals,  and 
churches  and  chapels  ministering  in  six  different 
languages,  and  to  as  many  different  nationalities. 
A  single  parish  in  New  York  expends  £100,000. 
upon  what  is  distinctly  mission  work,  and  in  a 
single  chapel  has  some  2000  children  under  in- 
struction. The  church  sustains  fifteen  mission- 
ary bishops  in  as  many  jurisdictions  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  is  to-day  represented  by  bishops  and 
missionaries  in  Africa,  China,  Japan,  and  Haiti. 
Her  spirit  was  never  more  united  or  aggi-essive, 
and  the  outlook  for  her  future,  even  in  the  judg- 

290 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

ment  of  impartial  observers  not  of  her  commu- 
nion, never  so  full  of  promise. 

Is  it  strange  that  she  should  wish,  then,  to  come 
back  to  this  sacred  and  venerable  shrine  in  which, 
by  the  consecrations  that  we  commemorate,  the 
completion  of  her  organic  life  was  effected  ?  Here 
she  drew  her  first  breath  as  a  daughter  of  the 
Anglican  communion.  From  that  communion  she 
has  derived  her  English  Bible,  her  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  and  her  most  sacred  traditions.  In 
the  language  of  the  preface  to  her  own  Prayer- 
book  she  declares :  "  This  Church  is  far  from  in- 
tending to  depart  from  the  Church  of  England  in 
any  essential  point  of  doctrine,  discipline,  or  wor- 
ship"; and  in  the  same  preface  she  records  her 
indebtedness,  under  God,  for  her  first  foundation, 
and  for  a  long  continuance  of  nursing  care  and 
protection,  to  her  whom  John  Winthrop,  governor 
of  colonial  Massachusetts,  was  wont  to  call  "  our 
dear  mother,  the  Church  of  England."  And  it 
was  in  this  spirit  that  that  great  prelate  William 
White,  first  presiding  bishop  of  the  American 
Church  in  the  Anglican  succession,  planned  and 
wrought.  I  would  that  his  venerated  successor, 
my  father  and  brother,  the  Right  Rev.  Dr.  Stevens, 
Bishop  of  Pennsylvania,  were  here  to  tell  you,  as 
I  may  not  hope  to  do,  of  the  influence  of  that  rare 
man  who,  a  hundred  years  ago  to-day,  knelt  be- 
fore this  altar. 

In  the  early  history  of  the  church  in  America 
there  is  another  name  associated  later  in  time 
vdth  the  diocese  of  New  York — I  mean  that  of 

291 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

John  Henry  Hobart  —  which  no  annalist  of  Ameri- 
can church  history  can  afford  to  underestimate. 
But  great  as  Hobart  was,  and  powerfully  as  he 
stamped  his  impress  upon  the  diocese  of  New 
York,  and  through  it  upon  the  whole  church  in 
the  United  States,  I  may  not  forget  to  render 
that  tribute  to  William  White  which  my  brother 
of  Pennsylvania,  had  the  infirm  condition  of  his 
health  not  prevented  his  presence  here  to-day, 
would  have  most  surely  paid  to  the  saint  and 
sage  who  was  his  first  predecessor.  His  hand  it 
was  which  determined  most  largely  the  lines  on 
which  the  ship  of  the  church  should  be  builded 
and  launched;  and,  departures  though  some  of 
them  were  from  your  own  national  traditions,  I 
may,  perhaps,  venture  in  this  presence  to  say  that 
time  and  experience  have  abundantly  vindicated 
them.  Your  daughter  Churches  in  more  than  one 
of  your  mightiest  Colonies  have  turned,  from  time 
to  time,  to  their  Sister  in  my  native  land  for  exam- 
ples of  synodical  and  missionary  organization,  and 
have  not  been  unwilling  to  adopt  our  methods  in 
these  particulars,  and  to  express  their  appreciation 
of  them.  That  feature  especially  of  our  organiza- 
tion which  at  the  first  view  excited  most  appre- 
hension in  Anglican  minds  —  I  mean  the  admis- 
sion of  the  laity  to  our  synodical  bodies — has,  it 
would  seem,  come  to  wear,  to  many  of  the  best 
minds  in  the  Church  of  England,  a  very  different 
aspect.  Surely,  if  the  experience  of  a  hundred 
years  counts  for  anything,  it  may  well  be  so.  And 
if  it  be  so,  that  may  be   sung  of  England  and 

292 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

of  "WTiite  which  Wordsworth  sang  of  White  and  the 
Western  World : 

To  thee,  O  saintly  White, 
Patriarch  of  a  wide-spreading  family, 
Remotest  lands  and  unborn  times  shall  turn. 
Whether  they  would  restore  or  build :  to  thee 
As  one  who  rightly  taught  how  zeal  should  bui'n, 
As  one  who  drew  from  out  faith's  hoHest  urn 
The  purest  stream  of  sacred  energy,^ 

And  therefore,  as  the  children  come  to-day  to 
kneel  at  their  mother's  knee,  they  thank  her  first 
for  that  godly  and  far-seeing  man  whom  she  gave 
back  to  them  as  their  first  primate.  But  most  of 
all  they  thank  her  for  those  spiritual  gifts  and 
graces  with  which  she  endowed  those  to  whom  she 
handed  on  and  down  the  succession  of  the  Angli- 
can episcopate.  Wayward  children  though  many 
of  her  sons  and  daughters  may  a  hundred  years 
ago  have  seemed,  they  revered  her  then,  and  their 
children  revere  her  still.  Never  were  her  influ- 
ence and  her  example  more  potent  in  America 
than  now.  Never  was  the  memory  of  her  saints 
and  martjTS  and  doctors  more  reverently  cher- 
ished than  at  this  houi*. 

And  so  across  the  sea  to-day  those  children 
send  the  greeting  of  their  homage  and  their  love. 
Surely,  as  they  do  so,  they  too  may  be  permitted 
to  remind  themselves  that  this  Jubilee  year  of 
yours  is  this  morning  doubly  theirs,  that  half  their 
first  century  has  been  covered  by  the  reign  of  a 
single  sovereign,  who,  whether  as  wife,  mother,  or 

1  Wordsworth's  "Ecclesiastical  Sonnets,"  part  iii,  sonnet  15. 


19* 


293 


A  Hundred  American  Years 

ruler,  has  endeared  herself  to  the  people  of  two 
hemispheres,  and  who  in  each  of  these  relations 
has  preeminently  illustrated  those  distinctive  traits 
of  fidelity  to  duty,  of  reverence  for  the  right,  and 
of  exhaustless  sympathy  with  misfortune  and  sor- 
row, which  have  been  among  the  chiefest  graces 
of  the  Church  of  England.  For  that  church  their 
supplications  will  ever  ascend;  and  as  some  of 
them  come  back  to  this  historic  spot  to  keep  this 
their  first  Centennial  birthday,  this  is  the  prayer 
they  breathe : 

Honored  Mother,  hitherto  you  have  been  preeminent 
in  Christendom  for  a  Scriptural  faith,  for  sound  learn- 
ing, and  for  pure  manners.  Already  you  have  borne 
witness  in  many  lands  to  the  Catholic  doctrine  in  all  its 
primitive  simplicity  and  power  by  fives  of  unselfish  and 
heroic  devotion.  May  it  be  so  more  and  more  in  all  the 
centuries  to  come.  And  when  another  hundred  years 
are  gone,  and  children's  children  gather  here,  may  you 
still  be  found  in  all  the  plenitude  of  yet-advancing  tri- 
umphs, rich  in  the  gifts  and  treasures  of  your  Heavenly 
Lord  and  Head,  with  no  stinted  hand  dispensing  them,  in 
ever- widening  circles  of  beneficence,  to  all  mankind. 


294 


THE  LIFE-GIVING  WORD 

A   SERMON 

Memorial  of  the  Right  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.  D.,  Boston,  Mass., 
May,  1893 


THE  LIFE-GIVING  WORD 


It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth ;  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing :  the  words 
that  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are  spirit,  and  they  are  life. 

St.  John  vi.  63. 


THE  discourse  from  which  I  take  these  words 
finds  both  its  occasion  and  its  key  in  the 
miracle  which  preceded  it.  In  a  day  when  some 
people  are  fond  of  saying  that  the  most  powerful 
motives  that  attract  people  to  the  religion  of 
Christ  are  what  Bishop  Butler  called  "  secondary 
motives,"  it  is  interesting  to  note  that,  of  some  at 
any  rate,  this  has  been  true  from  the  beginning. 
Christ  takes  the  five  loaves  and  two  fishes,  blesses 
them,  divides  them,  and  distributes  them ;  and  lo ! 
the  hunger  of  a  mighty  throng  is  satisfied.  His 
boundless  compassion  finds  no  limit  to  its  expres- 
sion, and  the  twelve  baskets  full  of  fragments  tell 
of  resources  which  no  emergency  could  exhaust. 

There  must,  indeed,  have  been  some  in  that 
vast  concourse  who  understood  what  the  wonder 
meant.  There  must  have  been  some  aching 
hearts,  as  well  as  hungry  mouths,  that  pierced 
through  the  shell  of  the  sign  to  the  innermost 
meaning  of  that  for  which  it  stood.  But  there 
were  others,  it  would  seem,  who  did  not.    There 

297 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

were  others  to  whom,  then  as  now,  another's  afflu- 
ence of  gifts  was  only  one  more  reason  for  de- 
mands, and  they  the  lowest,  that  could  know  no 
limit.  These  people  were  there,  over  against 
Jesus  then,  as  there  are  people  now  who  stand 
over  against  any  gifted  nature  just  to  reveal  how 
sensuous  are  their  hungers  and  how  much  they 
must  have  to  satisfy  them.  And  so  it  is  that  Jesus 
follows  the  miracle  with  the  sermon.  It  is,  in  one 
aspect  of  it,  a  counterpart  of  all  his  preaching. 
A  large  proportion  of  those  to  whom  he  spoke 
could  see  in  his  mighty  works  only  their  coarser 
side,  and  be  moved  by  his  miracle  of  enlargement 
only  to  ask  that  it  might  be  wrought  again  and 
again  to  satisfy  a  bodily  hunger.  And  so  he  sets 
to  work  to  lift  it  all —  the  miracle,  the  bread  with 
which  he  wi'ought  it,  the  hunger  which  it  satisfied 
—  up  into  that  higher  realm  where,  bathed  in  the 
light  of  heaven,  it  shone  a  revelation  of  the  aim  of 
God  to  meet  and  feed  the  hungers  of  the  soul. 

This  is  the  thought  that  echoes  and  reechoes, 
like  some  great  refrain,  from  first  to  last  through 
all  that  he  says :  "  Labor  not  for  the  meat  that 
perisheth,  but  for  that  which  endureth  unto  ever- 
lasting life."^  "My  Father  giveth  you  the  true 
bread  from  heaven."  ^  And  then,  as  if  he  would 
bring  out  into  clearer  relief  the  great  thought  that 
he  is  seeking  to  communicate :  "  I  am  the  bread  of 
life:  he  that  cometh  to  me  shall  never  hunger; 
and  he  that  believeth  in  me  shall  never  thirst."  ^ 
"  The  bread  that  I  will  give  is  my  flesh,  which  I 

1  St.  John  vi.  27.  2  St.  John  vi.  32.  3  St.  John  vi.  35. 

298 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world."  ^  "  Verily,  ver- 
ily, I  say  unto  you,  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye  have  no  life 
in  you.  .  .  .  For  my  flesh  is  meat  indeed,  and  my 
blood  is  drink  indeed.  He  that  eateth  my  flesh, 
and  drinketh  my  blood,  dwelleth  in  me,  and  I  in 
him."  2 

One  can  readily  enough  understand  the  enor- 
mous shock  of  language  such  as  this  to  a  sensu- 
ous and  sense-loving  people.  To  say,  indeed, 
that  it  had  no  meaning  to  them  would  be  as 
wide  of  the  mark  as  to  say  that  it  had  no 
other  meaning  than  that  which  they  put  upon 
it.  But  it  is,  plainly,  to  show  that  other,  inner 
meaning,  which  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  discoui'se  they  seem  so  incapable  of  dis- 
cerning, that  the  whole  discussion  gathers  itself 
up  and  opens  itself  out  in  the  words  with  which  I 
began:  "It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth;  the  flesh 
profiteth  nothing:  the  words  that  I  speak  unto 
you,  they  are  spirit,  and  they  are  life." 

How  the  thunders  of  old  disputes,  like  the  rum- 
bling of  heavy  artillery  through  distant  and  long- 
deserted  valleys,  come  with  these  words,  echoing 
down  to  us  from  all  the  past !  It  is  a  reflection  of 
equal  solemnity  and  sadness  that  no  ordinarily 
well-instructed  Christian  disciple  can  hear  the 
sixth  chapter  of  St.  John's  gospel  read  as  one  of 
the  church's  lessons  without  having  called  up  be- 
fore his  mind's  eye  one  of  the  bitterest  and  most 
vehement   controversies,   which,   for   a   thousand 

1  St.  John  vi.  51.  2  St.  John  vi.  53-56. 

299 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

years,  has  rent  the  Church  of  God.  On  the  one 
side  stand  the  mystics,  and  on  the  other  the  liter- 
alists ;  and  behind  them  both  is  that  divinely  in- 
stituted Sacrament  which,  as  in  turn  the  one  or 
the  other  has  contended,  is  here,  or  is  not  here, 
referred  to.  Happy  are  we  if  we  have  come  to 
learn  that  here,  as  so  often  in  the  realm  of  theo- 
logical controversy,  both  are  right  and  both  are 
wrong. 

For  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  impossible  to  deal 
candidly  with  these  words  of  Christ's  and  not  dis- 
cern that  they  are  words  of  general  rather  than 
of  specific  import;  that  they  were  spoken  to  state 
a  truth  rather  than  to  foreshadow  a  rite.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  no  less  impossible  to  read  them 
and  not  perceive  that  there  is  in  them  a  distinct, 
if  not  specific,  foreshadowing  of  that  holy  ordi- 
nance which  we  know  as  the  Eucharistic  Feast. 
It  is  indeed  incredible  that  "  just  a  year  before  the 
Eucharist  was  instituted,  the  Founder  of  this,  the 
most  distinctive  element  of  Christian  worship,  had 
no  thought  of  it  in  His  mind.  Surely,  for  long  be- 
forehand that  institution  was  in  His  thoughts;  and 
if  so,  the  coincidences  are  too  exact  to  be  for- 
tuitous."^ This  is  the  other  aspect  of  the  dis- 
course. But  as  the  great  Bishop  Durham  has 
said,  "  The  discourse  cannot  refer  primarily  to  the 
Holy  Communion,  nor  again  can  it  be  simply  pro- 
phetic of  that  Sacrament.  The  teaching  has  a  full 
and  consistent  meaning,  in  connection  with  the 
actual  circumstances,  and  it  treats  essentially  of 

iPlummer,  "St.  John's  Gospel,"  p.  146. 
300 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

spiritual  realities  with  which  no  external  act,  as 
such,  can  be  [co] -extensive."  ^ 

Calm  words  and  wise,  which  touch  unerringly 
the  core  and  substance  of  the  whole  matter,  and 
bring  us  face  to  face  with  that  larger  truth  which 
most  of  all  concerns  us  who  are  here  to-day. 

For,  first  of  all,  it  belongs  to  you  and  me  to 
remember  why  we  are  here,  and  in  what  supreme 
relation.  This  is  a  council  of  the  church;  and 
whatever  conception  some  of  us  may  have  of  that 
word  in  other  and  wider  aspects  of  its  meaning, 
there  can  be  no  question  of  its  meaning  here.  The 
church,  with  us,  and  for  the  present  occasion,  at 
any  rate,  is  this  church  whose  sons  we  are,  whose 
orders  we  bear,  in  whose  Convention  we  sit,  whose 
bishop  we  mourn,  and  whose  bishop  you  are  soon 
to  elect.  In  other  words,  that  is  an  organized, 
visible,  tangible,  audible  body,  situate  here  in  the 
commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  of  which  now  at 
any  rate  I  am  talking,  and  with  which  you  are  to 
be  concerned.  It  is  an  institution  having  an 
earthly  as  well  as  a  heavenly  pedigree  and  history, 
and  having  earthly  as  well  as  heavenly  means  to 
employ  and  tasks  to  perform.  There  can  be,  there 
ought  to  be,  no  indefiniteness,  no  uncertainty 
about  this.  Whatever  of  such  indefiniteness  there 
may  have  been  in  the  life  and  work  of  the  church 
in  other  days,  we  have  all,  or  almost  all,  of  us 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  time  for  it  is 
ended  now.  If  the  church  is  to  do  her  work  in 
the  world,  she  must  have  an  organized  life,  and  a 

iWestcott,  "Speaker's  Commentary",  ii,  p.  113. 
301 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

duly  commissioned  ministry,  and  duly  adminis- 
tered sacraments,  and  a  vast  variety  of  means  and 
agencies,  instruments  and  mechanisms,  with  which 
to  accomplish  that  work.  And  when  we  come  to 
Convention  we  must  talk  about  these  things,  and 
add  up  long  rows  of  figures,  and  take  account  of 
the  lists  of  priests  and  deacons,  and  the  rest,  and 
make  mention  of  vestries,  and  guilds,  and  parish 
houses,  and  sisterhoods,  and  all  the  various  arms 
and  tools  with  which  the  church  is  fighting  the 
battle  of  the  Lord. 

Yes,  we  must;  and  he  who  despises  these  things, 
or  the  least  of  them,  is  just  as  foolish  and  unrea- 
sonable as  he  who  despises  his  eye  or  his  hand, 
when  either  are  set  over  against  that  motive-power 
of  eye  or  hand  which  we  call  an  idea.  One  often 
hears,  when  ecclesiastical  bodies  such  as  this  have 
adjourned,  a  wail  of  dissatisfaction  that  so  much 
time  and  thought  should  have  been  expended  in 
things  that  were,  after  all,  only  matters  of  secon- 
dary importance;  and  the  fine  scorn  for  such  things 
which  is  at  such  times  expressed  is  often  itself  as 
excessive  and  as  disproportionate  to  greater  and 
graver  things  as  that  of  which  it  speaks. 

But,  having  said  this,  is  it  not  my  plain  duty  to 
tell  you,  brethren  of  the  diocese  of  Massachusetts, 
that  he  who  stops  over-long  in  the  mere  mecha- 
nism of  religion  is  verily  missing  that  for  which 
religion  stands  ?  Here  indeed,  it  must  be  owned, 
is,  if  not  our  greatest  danger,  one  of  the  greatest. 
All  life  is  full  of  that  strange  want  of  intellectual 
and  moral  perspective  which  fails  to  see  how  sec- 

302 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

ondary,  after  all,  are  means  to  ends ;  and  how  he 
only  has  truly  apprehended  the  office  of  religion 
who  has  learned,  when  undertaking  in  any  wise  to 
present  it  or  represent  it,  to  hold  fast  to  that  which 
is  the  one  central  thought  and  fact  of  all :  "  It  is 
the  spirit  that  quickeneth ;  the  flesh  profiteth  no- 
thing: the  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  they 
are  spirit,  and  they  are  life." 

And  this  brings  me  —  in  how  real  and  vivid  a 
way  I  am  sure  you  must  feel  as  keenly  as  I  —  face 
to  face  with  him  of  whom  I  am  set  to  speak  to-day. 
In  one  aspect  of  it,  my  task — from  which  at  the  first 
view  any  one  might  well  shrink  —  is  made  com- 
paratively easy  by  words  which  have  been  spoken 
already.  Never  before  in  the  history,  not  only 
of  our  own  communion,  but  of  any  or  all  com- 
munions, has  the  departure  of  a  religious  teacher 
been  more  widely  noted  and  deplored  than  in 
the  case  of  him  of  whom  this  commonwealth  and 
this  diocese  have  been  bereaved.  Never  before, 
surely,  in  the  case  of  any  man  whom  we  can  re- 
call, has  the  sense  of  loss  and  bereavement  been 
more  distinctly  a  personal  one,  extending  to  mul- 
titudes in  two  hemispheres  who  did  not  know  him, 
who  had  never  seen  or  heard  him,  and  yet  to 
whom  he  had  revealed  himself  in  very  real  and 
helpful  ways.  It  has  followed  inevitably  from 
this  that  that  strong  tide  of  profound  feeling 
has  found  expression  in  many  and  most  unusual 
forms,  and  it  will  be  among  the  most  interesting 
tasks  of  the  future  biographer  of  the  late  Bishop 
of  Massachusetts  to  take  note  of  these  various 

303 


The  Ufe-Giving  Word 

memorials,  and  to  trace  in  them  the  secret  of  his 
■unique  power  and  influence. 

But  just  because  they  have,  so  many  of  them,  in 
such  remarkable  variety,  and  from  sources  so  di- 
verse, been  written  or  spoken,  and  no  less  because 
a  memoir  of  Phillips  Brooks  is  already  undertaken 
by  hands  preeminently  designated  for  that  pur- 
pose, I  may  wisely  here  confine  myself  to  another 
and  very  different  task.  I  shall  not  attempt,  there- 
fore, even  the  merest  outline  of  a  biographical  re- 
view. I  shall  not  undertake  to  analyze,  nor,  save 
incidentally,  even  to  refer  to,  the  influences  and 
inheritances  that  wrought  in  the  mind  and  upon 
the  life  of  your  late  friend  and  teacher.  I  shall 
still  less  attempt  to  discover  the  open  secret  of  his 
rare  and  unique  charm  and  attractiveness  as  a 
man ;  and  I  shall  least  of  all  endeavor  to  forecast 
the  place  which  history  will  give  to  him  among 
the  leaders  and  builders  of  our  age.  Brief  as  was 
his  ministry  in  his  higher  office,  and  to  our  view 
all  too  soon  ended,  I  shall  be  content  to  speak  of 
him  as  a  bishop,  of  his  divine  right,  as  I  pro- 
foundly believe,  to  a  place  in  the  episcopate,  and 
of  the  preeminent  value  of  his  distinctive  and  in- 
comparable witness  to  the  highest  aim  and  pur- 
pose of  that  office. 

And  first  of  all  let  me  say  a  word  in  regard  to 
the  way  in  which  he  came  to  it.  When  chosen  to 
the  episcopate  of  this  diocese,  your  late  bishop 
had  already  at  least  once,  as  we  all  know,  declined 
that  office.  It  was  well  known  to  those  who  knew 
him  best  that,  as  he  had  viewed  it  for  a  large  part 

304 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

of  his  ministry,  it  was  a  work  with  which  he  had 
no  especial  sympathy  either  as  to  its  tasks  or,  as 
he  had  understood  them,  its  opportunities.  But 
the  time  undoubtedly  came  when,  as  to  this,  he 
modified  his  earlier  opinions;  and  the  time  came 
too,  as  I  am  most  glad  to  think,  when  he  was  led 
to  feel  that  if  he  were  called  to  such  an  office  he 
might  find  in  it  an  opportunity  for  widening  his 
own  sympathies,  and  for  estimating  more  justly 
those  with  whom  previously  he  had  believed  him- 
self to  have  little  in  common.  It  was  the  inevita- 
ble condition  of  his  strong  and  deep  convictions 
that  he  should  not  always  or  easily  understand  or 
make  due  allowance  for  men  of  different  opinions. 
It  was  —  God  and  you  will  bear  me  witness  that 
this  is  true!  —  one  of  the  noblest  characteristics 
of  his  fifteen  months'  episcopate  that,  as  a  bishop, 
men's  rightful  liberty  of  opinion  found  in  him  not 
only  a  large  and  generous  tolerance,  but  a  most 
beautiful  and  gracious  acceptance.  He  seized, 
instantly  and  easily,  that  which  wiU  be  forever 
the  highest  conception  of  the  episcopate  in  its 
relations  whether  to  the  clergy  or  the  laity — its 
paternal  and  fraternal  character;  and  his  "sweet 
reasonableness,"  both  as  a  father  and  as  a  brother, 
shone  through  all  that  he  was  and  did.  For  one, 
I  greatly  love  to  remember  this — that  when  the 
time  came  that  he  himself,  with  the  simple  natu- 
ralness whidi  marked  all  that  he  did,  was  brought 
to  reconsider  his  earlier  attitude  toward  the  epis- 
copal office,  and  to  express  with  characteristic  can- 
dor his  readiness  to  take  up  its  work  if  he  should 
20  305 


The  Life-Giving  IVord 

be  chosen  to  it,  he  turned  to  his  new  and  to  him 
most  strange  task  with  a  supreme  desire  to  do  it 
in  a  loving  and  whole-hearted  way,  and  to  make  it 
helpful  to  every  man,  woman,  and  child  with  whom 
he  came  in  contact.  What  could  have  been  more 
like  him  than  that  in  that  last  address  which  he 
delivered  to  the  chou'-boys  at  Newton,  he  should 
have  said  to  them:  "When  you  meet  me,  let  me 
know  that  you  know  me  "  ?  Another  might  easily 
have  been  misunderstood  in  asking  those  whom  he 
might  by  chance  encounter  to  salute  him ;  but  he 
knew,  and  the  boys  knew,  what  he  had  in  mind  — 
how  he  and  they  were  all  striving  to  serve  one 
Master,  and  how  each — he  most  surely  as  much 
as  they  —  was  to  gain  strength  and  cheer  from 
mutual  recognition  in  the  spirit  of  a  common 
brotherhood. 

And  thus  it  was  always;  and  this  it  was  that 
allied  itself  so  naturally  to  that  which  was  his 
never-ceasing  endeavor  —  to  lift  all  men  every- 
where to  that  which  was  with  him  the  highest 
conception  of  his  office,  whether  as  a  preacher  or 
as  a  bishop  —  the  conception  of  God  as  a  Father, 
and  of  the  brotherhood  of  all  men  as  mutually 
related  in  him. 

In  an  address  which  he  delivered  to  the  students 
of  Johns  Hopkins  University  during  the  last  Gen- 
eral Convention  in  Baltimore,  he  spoke  substan- 
tially these  words : 

In  trying  to  win  a  man  to  a  better  life,  show  him  not 
the  evil,  bat  the  nobleness  of  his  nature.    Lead  him  to 

306 


The  Ufe-Giviiig  Word 

enthusiastic  contemplations  of  humanity  in  its  perfec- 
tion ;  and  when  he  asks,  Why,  if  this  is  so,  do  not  I  have 
this  life?  —  then  project  on  the  background  of  his  enthu- 
siasm his  own  life  ;  say  to  him,  "  Because  you  are  a  liar, 
because  you  blind  your  soul  with  licentiousness,  shame  is 
born,  but  not  a  shame  of  despair.  It  is  soon  changed 
to  joy.  Christianity  becomes  an  opportunity,  a  high 
privilege,  the  means  of  attaining  to  the  most  exalted 
ideal  —  and  the  only  means."  Herein  must  lie  all  real 
power;  herein  laj^  Christ's  power,  that  He  appreciated 
the  beauty  and  richness  of  humanity,  that  it  is  very  near 
the  Infinite,  very  near  to  God.  These  two  facts  —  we  are 
the  children  of  God,  and  God  is  our  Father  —  make  us 
look  very  differently  at  ourselves,  very  differently  at  our 
neighbors,  very  differently  at  God.  We  should  be  sur- 
prised not  at  our  good  deeds,  but  at  our  bad  ones.  We 
should  expect  good  as  more  likely  to  occur  than  evil ;  we 
should  believe  that  our  best  moments  are  our  truest.  I 
was  once  talking  with  an  acquaintance  about  whose 
religious  position  I  knew  nothing,  and  he  expressed  a 
very  hopeful  opinion  in  regard  to  a  matter  about  which 
I  was  myself  very  doubtful.  "Why,"  I  said  to  him,  "you 
are  an  optimist."  "  Of  course  I  am  an  optimist,"  he 
replied,  "because  I  am  a  Christian."  I  felt  that  as  a 
reproof.    The  Christian  must  be  an  optimist. 

I  set  these  words  over  against  those  of  his 
Master  with  which  I  began,  and  the  two  in  es- 
sence are  one :  "  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you, 
they  are  spirit,  and  they  are  lifeP  There  is  a  life 
nobler  and  diviner  than  any  that  we  have  dreamed 
of.  To  the  poorest  and  meanest  of  us,  as  to  the 
best  and  most  richly  dowered,  it  is  alike  open.  To 
turn  toward  it,  to  long  for  it,  to  reach  up  after 

307 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

it,  to  believe  in  its  ever-recurring  nearness,  and  to 
glorify  God  in  attaining  to  it,  this  is  the  calling  of 
a  human  soul ! 

Now  then,  what,  I  ask  you,  is  all  the  rest  of  re- 
ligion worth  in  comparison  with  this  ?  Not  what 
is  it  worth  in  itself,  but  what  is  its  place  relatively 
to  this?  This,  I  maintain,  is  the  supreme  question 
for  the  episcopate,  as  it  ought  to  be  the  supreme 
question  with  the  ministry  of  any  and  every  or- 
der. And  therefore  it  is,  I  affirm,  that  in  bringing 
into  the  episcopate  with  such  unique  vividness  and 
power  this  conception  of  his  office,  your  bishop 
rendered  to  his  order,  and  to  the  church  of  God 
everywhere,  a  service  so  transcendent.  A  most 
gifted  and  sympathetic  observer  of  our  departed 
brother's  character  and  influence  has  said  of  him, 
contrasting  him  with  the  power  of  institutions: 
"His  life  will  always  suggest  the  importance  of 
the  influence  of  the  individual  man  as  compared 
with  institutional  Christianity."  In  one  sense  un- 
doubtedly this  is  true;  but  I  should  prefer  to 
say  that  his  life-work  will  always  show  the  large 
and  helpful  influence  of  a  great  soul  upon  insti- 
tutional Christianity.  It  is  a  superficial  and  un- 
philosophical  temperament  that  disparages  in- 
stitutions ;  for  institutions  are  only  another  name 
for  that  organized  force  and  life  by  which  God 
rules  the  world.  But  it  is  undoubtedly  and  pro- 
foundly true  that  you  no  sooner  have  an  institu- 
tion, whether  in  society,  in  politics,  or  in  religion, 
than  you  are  threatened  with  the  danger  that  the 
institution  may  first  exaggerate  itself,  and  then 

908 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

harden  and  stiffen  into  a  machine;  and  that  in 
the  realm  of  religion,  preeminently,  those  whose 
office  it  should  be  to  quicken  and  infuse  it  with 
new  life,  should  themselves  come  at  last  to  "  wor- 
ship the  net  and  the  drag."  And  just  here  you 
find  in  the  history  of  religion,  in  aU  ages,  the 
place  of  the  prophet  and  the  seer.  He  is  to  pierce 
through  the  fabric  of  the  visible  structm*e  to  that 
soul  of  things  for  which  it  stands.  When  in  Isaiah 
the  Holy  Ghost  commands  the  prophet,  "  Lift  up 
thy  voice  with  strength ;  lift  it  up,  be  not  afraid : 
say  unto  the  cities  of  Judah,  Behold  your  God ! "  ^ 
it  is  not  alone,  you  see,  his  voice  that  he  is  to  lift 
up.  No,  no !  It  is  the  vision  of  the  Unseen  and 
Divine.  "Say  unto  the  cities  of  Judah,  Behold 
YOUR  God  ! "  Over  and  over  again  that  voice 
breaks  in  upon  the  slumbrous  torpor  of  Israel,  and 
smites  the  dead  souls  of  priests  and  people  alike. 
Now  it  is  a  Balaam,  now  it  is  an  Elijah,  a  David, 
an  Isaiah,  a  John  the  Baptist,  a  Paul  the  apostle, 
a  Peter  the  hermit,  a  Savonarola,  a  Huss,  a  White- 
field,  a  Wesley,  a  Frederick  Maurice,  a  Frederick 
Robertson,  a  John  Keble  (with  his  clear  spiritual 
insight,  and  his  fine  spiritual  sensibility),  a  Phillips 
Brooks.  Do  not  mistake  me.  I  do  not  say  that 
there  were  not  many  others.  But  these  names 
are  typical,  and  that  for  which  they  stand  cannot 
easily  be  mistaken.  I  affirm  without  qualification 
that,  in  that  gift  of  vision  and  of  exaltation  for 
which  they  stand,  they  stand  for  the  highest  and 
the  hest  —  that  one  thing  for  which  the  chm*ch  of 


20* 


1  Isaiah  xl.  19. 
309 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

God  most  of  all  stands,  and  of  which,  so  long  as  it 
is  the  church  militant,  it  will  most  of  all  stand  in 
need:  to  know  that  the  end  of  all  its  mechanisms 
and  ministries  is  to  impart  life,  and  that  nothing 
which  obscures  or  loses  sight  of  the  eternal  source 
of  life  can  regenerate  or  quicken;  to  teach  men 
to  cry  out  with  St.  Augustine,  Fecisti  nos  ad  Te, 
Domine^  et  inquietum  est  cor  nostrum  donee  requiescat 
in  Te:^  "Thou  hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  0  Lord, 
and  our  heart  is  unquiet  until  it  rests  in  Thee"; 
this,  however  any  one  may  be  tempted  to  fence  and 
juggle  with  the  fact,  is  the  truth  on  which  all  the 
rest  depends. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  a  truth  which  there  is  much 
in  the  tasks  and  engagements  of  the  episcopate  to 
obscure.  A  bishop  is  preeminently,  at  any  rate  in 
the  popular  conception  of  him,  an  administrator; 
and  howsoever  wide  of  the  mark  this  popular  con- 
ception may  be  from  the  essential  idea  of  the  office, 
it  must  be  owned  that  there  is  much  in  a  bishop's 
work  in  our  day  to  limit  his  activities,  and  there- 
fore his  influence,  within  such  a  sphere.  To  recog- 
nize his  prophetic  office  as  giving  expression  to 
that  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost  of  which  he  is  pre- 
eminently the  representative,  to  illustrate  it  upon 
a  wider  instead  of  a  narrower  field,  to  recognize 
and  seize  the  greater  opportunities  for  its  exercise, 
to  be  indeed  "a  leader  and  commander"  to  the 
people,  not  by  means  of  the  petty  mechanisms  of 
officialism,  but  by  the  strong,  strenuous,  and  un- 
wearied  proclamation   of   the   truth, —  under   all 

iSt.  Augustine,  "Confessions,"  i,  1. 
310 


The  Ufe-Giving  Word 

conditions  to  make  the  occasion  somehow  a  step- 
ping-stone to  that  mount  of  vision  from  which 
men  may  see  Grod  and  righteousness,  and  become 
sensible  of  the  nearness  of  both  to  themselves, — 
this,  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me,  is  no  un- 
worthy use  of  the  loftiest  calling  and  gifts. 

And  such  a  use  was  his.  A  bishop-elect,  walk- 
ing with  him  one  day  in  the  country,  was  speaking, 
with  not  unnatural  shrinking  and  hesitancy,  of  the 
new  work  toward  which  he  was  soon  to  turn  his 
face,  and  said  among  other  things:  "  I  have  a  great 
dread,  in  the  episcopate,  of  perfunctoriness.  In 
the  administration,  especially,  of  Confirmation,  it 
seems  almost  impossible,  in  connection  with  its 
constant  repetition,  to  avoid  it."  He  was  silent 
a  moment,  and  then  said :  "  I  do  not  think  that  it 
need  be  so.  The  office,  indeed,  is  the  same.  But 
every  class  is  different ;  and  then  —  think  what  it 
is  to  them !  It  seems  to  me  that  that  thought  can 
never  cease  to  move  one."  What  a  clear  insight 
the  answer  gave  to  his  own  ministry !  One  turns 
back  to  his  first  sermon,  that  evening  when,  with 
his  fellow-student  in  Virginia,  he  walked  across 
the  fields  to  the  log-cabin  where,  not  yet  in  holy 
orders,  he  preached  it,  and  where,  afterward,  he 
ministered  with  such  swiftly  increasing  power  to  a 
handful  of  negro  servants.  "  It  was  an  utter  fail- 
ure," he  said  afterward.  Yes,  perhaps;  but  all 
through  the  failure  he  struggled  to  give  expression 
to  that  of  which  his  soul  was  full;  and  I  do  not 
doubt  that,  even  then,  they  who  heard  him  some- 
how understood  him. 

311 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

We  pass  from  those  first  words  to  the  last  — 
those  of  which  I  spoke  a  moment  ago  —  the  ad- 
dress to  the  choir-boys  at  Newton.  Was  there  ever 
such  an  address  to  choir-boys  before?  He  knew 
Httle  or  nothing  about  the  science  of  music,  and 
with  characteristic  candor  he  at  once  said  so.  But 
he  passed  quickly  from  the  music  to  those  incom- 
parable words  of  which  the  music  was  the  mere 
vehicle  and  vesture.  He  bade  the  lads  to  whom 
he  spoke  think  of  those  who,  long  ago  and  all  the 
ages  down,  had  sung  that  matchless  Psalter,  of 
the  boys  and  men  of  other  times,  and  what  it  had 
meant  to  them.  And  then,  as  he  looked  into  their 
fresh  young  faces,  and  saw  the  long  vista  of  life 
stretching  out  before  them,  he  bade  them  think  of 
that  larger  and  fuller  meaning  which  was  to  come 
into  those  Psalms  of  David  when  he  —  was  there 
some  prophetic  sense  of  how  soon  with  him  the 
end  would  be?  —  when  he  and  such  as  he  had 
passed  away  —  what  new  doors  were  to  open,  what 
deeper  meanings  were  to  be  discerned,  what  nobler 
opportunities  were  to  dawn,  as  the  years  hastened 
swiftly  on  toward  their  august  and  glorious  con- 
summation !  How  it  all  lifts  us  up  as  we  read  it, 
and  how  like  it  was  to  that  "  one  sermon "  which 
he  forever  preached ! 

And,  in  saying  so,  I  do  not  forget  what  that  was 
which  some  men  said  was  missing  in  it.  His,  they 
tell  us  who  hold  some  dry  and  formahzed  state- 
ment of  the  truth  so  close  to  the  eye  that  it  ob- 
scures all  larger  vision  of  it — his,  they  tell  us,  was 
an  "  invertebrate  theology."     Of  what  he  was  and 

312 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

spoke,  such  a  criticism  is  as  if  one  said  of  the 
wind,  that  divinely  appointed  symbol  of  the  Holy 
Grhost,  "  It  has  no  spine  or  ribs."  A  spine  and  ribs 
are  very  necessary  things;  but  we  bury  them  as 
so  much  chalk  and  lime  when  once  the  breath  has 
gone  out  of  them!  In  the  beginning  we  read: 
"And  the  Lord  God  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the 
breath  of  life,  and  man  became  a  living  soul."^ 
And  all  along  since  then  there  have  been  mes- 
sengers of  God  into  whom  the  same  divine  breath 
has  been,  as  it  were  without  measui'e,  breathed, 
and  who  have  been  the  quickeners  and  inspirers  of 
their  fellows.  Nothing  less  than  this  can  explain 
that  wholly  exceptional  and  yet  consistent  influ- 
ence which  he  whom  we  mourn  gave  forth.  It 
was  not  confined  or  limited  by  merely  personal  or 
physical  conditions,  but  breathed  with  equal  and 
quickening  power  through  all  that  he  taught  and 
wrote.  There  were  multitudes  who  never  saw  or 
heard  him,  but  by  whom  nevertheless  he  was  as 
intimately  known  and  understood  as  if  he  had 
been  their  daily  companion.  Never  was  there  an 
instance  which  more  truly  fulfilled  the  saying, 
"  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are  spirit, 
and  they  are  life."  They  reached  down  to  the 
inmost  need  of  empty  and  aching  hearts  and  an- 
swered it.  They  spoke  to  that  in  the  most  sin- 
stained  and  wayward  soul  which  is,  after  all,  the 
image  of  the  invisible  God  —  spoke  to  it,  touched 
it,  constrained  it,  "  Wliat  has  this  fine-bred  Bos- 
ton scholar,"  plain  men  asked,  when  we  bade  him 

1  Genesis  ii.  7. 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

come  to  us  and  preach  in  our  Trinity  —  "  what  has 
such  an  one  to  say  to  the  business  men  of  Wall 
street!"  But  when  he  came,  straightway  every 
man  found  out  that  he  had  indeed  something  to 
say  to  him  —  a  word  of  power,  a  word  of  hope,  a 
word  of  enduring  joy  and  strength ! 

A  kindred  thinker  of  large  vision  and  rare  in- 
sight, New  England-born  and  nurtured  like  him- 
self,^ speaking  of  him  not  long  after  his  death, 
said: 

There  are  three  forms  pertaining  to  the  Christian 
truths :  They  are  true  as  facts,  they  are  true  as  doctrines 
intellectually  apprehended,  they  are  true  as  spiritual 
experiences  to  be  realized.  Bishop  Brooks  struck  di- 
rectly for  the  last.  In  the  spirit  he  found  the  truth;  and 
only  as  he  could  get  it  into  a  spiritual  form  did  he  con- 
ceive it  to  have  power. 

It  was  because  he  assumed  the  facts  as  true  in  the 
main,  refusing  to  insist  on  petty  accuracy,  and  passed  by 
doctrinal  forms  concerning  which  there  might  be  great 
divergence  of  opinion,  and  can-ied  his  thought  on  into 
the  world  of  spirit,  that  he  won  so  great  a  hearing  and 
such  conviction  of  behef .  For  it  is  the  spirit  that  gives 
common  standing-ground ;  it  says  substantially  the  same 
thing  in  aU  men.  Speak  as  a  spirit  to  the  spiritual  na- 
ture of  men,  and  they  will  respond,  because  in  the  spirit 
they  draw  near  to  their  common  Source,  and  to  the  world 
to  which  all  belong. 

It  was  because  he  dealt  with  this  common  factor  of  the 
human  and  the  Divine  nature  that  he  was  so  positive  and 
practical.  In  the  Spirit,  it  is  all  yea  and  amen ;  there  is 
no  negative;   in  the  New  Jerusalem  there  is  no  night. 

1  Rev.  Theodore  T.  Hunger,  D.  D. 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

We  can  describe  this  feature  of  his  ministry  by  words 
from  one  of  his  own  sermons :  ''  It  has  always  been 
through  men  of  belief,  not  unbelief,  that  power  from 
God  has  poured  into  man.  It  is  not  the  discriminating 
critic,  but  he  whose  beating,  throbbing  life  offers  itself 
a  channel  for  the  Divine  force  —  he  is  the  man  through 
whom  the  world  grows  rich,  and  whom  it  remembers 
with  perpetual  thanksgiving." 


And  shall  not  you  who  are  here  to-day  thank 
God  that  such  a  man  was,  though  for  so  brief  a 
space,  your  bishop?  Some  there  were,  you  re- 
member, who  thought  that  those  greater  spiritual 
gifts  of  his  would  unfit  him  for  the  business  of 
practical  affairs.  "A  bishop's  daily  round,"  they 
said,  "his  endless  correspondence,  his  hurried  jour- 
neyings,  his  weight  of  anxious  cares,  the  misad- 
ventures of  other  men,  ever  returning  to  plague 
him  —  how  can  he  bring  himself  to  stoop  and  deal 
with  these?"  But  as  in  so  much  else  that  was 
transcendent  in  him,  how  little,  here  too,  his  critics 
understood  him !  No  more  pathetic  proof  of  this 
has  come  to  light  than  in  that  testimony  of  one 
among  you  who,  as  his  private  secretary,  stood  in 
closest  and  most  intimate  relations  to  him.  What 
a  story  that  is  which  he  has  given  to  us  of  a  great 
soul,  faithful  always  in  the  greatest!  Yes,  but  no 
less  faithful  in  the  least.  There  seems  a  strange, 
almost  grotesque  impossibility  in  the  thought  that 
such  an  one  should  ever  have  come  to  be  regarded 
as  "a  stickler  for  the  Canons."^     But  we  look  a 

i"A  Sketch,"  etc.,  by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Brooks,  D.  D.,  p.  4. 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

little  deeper  than  the  surface,  and  all  that  is  incon- 
gi'uous  straightway  disappears.  His  was  the  realm 
of  a  Divine  Order ;  his  was  the  office  of  his  Lord's 
servant.  God  had  called  him.  He  had  put  him 
where  he  was.  He  had  set  his  church  to  be  his 
witness  in  the  world,  and  in  it  all  his  children, 
the  greatest  with  the  least,  to  walk  in  ways  of 
reverent  appointment.  Those  ways  might  irk 
and  cramp  him  sometimes.  They  did:  he  might 
speak  of  them  with  sharp  impatience  and  seeming 
disesteem  sometimes.  He  did  that  too,  now  and 
then ;  for  he  was  human  like  the  rest  of  us !  But 
mark  you  this,  my  brothers, — for,  in  an  age  which, 
under  one  iSgment  or  another,  whether  of  more 
ancient  or  more  modern  license,  is  an  age  of 
much  self-will,  we  shall  do  well  to  remember  it, — 
his  was  a  life  of  orderly  and  consistent  obedience 
to  rule.  He  kept  to  the  chm'ch's  plain  and  stately 
ways  —  kept  to  them,  and  prized  them  too  ! 

But  all  the  while  he  held  his  soul  wide  open  to 
the  vision  of  his  Lord !  Up  out  of  a  routine  that 
seemed  to  others  that  did  not  know  or  could  not 
understand  him,  and  who  vouchsafed  to  him  much 
condescending  compassion  for  a  bondage  which  he 
never  felt,  and  of  which  in  vain  they  strove  to  per- 
suade him  to  complain  —  up  out  of  the  narrower 
round  in  which  so  faithfully  he  walked,  from  time 
to  time  he  climbed,  and  came  back  bathed  in  a 
heavenly  light,  with  lips  aglow  with  heavenly  fire. 
The  Spirit  had  spoken  to  him,  and  so  he  spoke  to 
us.     "The  flesh  profiteth  nothing:  it  is  the  spirit 


316 


The  Life-Giving  Word 

that  quickeneth.     The  words  that  I  speak  unto 
you,  they  are  spirit,  and  they  are  life." 

And  so  we  thank  Grod,  my  brothers,  not  alone 
for  his  message,  but  that  it  was  given  to  him  to 
speak  it  as  a  bishop  in  the  church  of  God.  We 
thank  God  that  in  a  generation  that  so  greatly 
needs  to  cry,  as  our  Te  Deum  teaches  us,  "  Govern 
us  and  lift  us  up  !  "  he  was  given  to  the  church  not 
alone  to  rule,  but  to  uplift.  What  bishop  is  there 
who  may  not  wisely  seek  to  be  like  him  by  draw- 
ing forever  on  those  fires  of  the  Holy  Ghost  that 
set  his  lips  aflame  ?  Nay,  what  soul  among  us  all 
is  there  that  may  not  wisely  seek  to  ascend  into 
that  upper  realm  in  which  he  walked,  and  by 
whose  mighty  airs  his  soul  was  filled  ?  Unto  the 
almighty  and  ever-living  God  we  yield  most  high 
praise  and  hearty  thanks  for  the  wonderful  grace 
and  virtue  declared  in  all  his  saints  who  have 
been  the  chosen  vessels  of  his  gi-ace  and  the  lights 
of  the  world  in  their  several  generations ;  but  here 
and  to-day,  especially  for  his  servant,  Phillips 
Brooks,  sometime  of  this  commonwealth  and  this 
diocese,  true  prophet,  true  priest,  true  bishop,  to 
the  glory  of  God  the  Father ! 


317 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  CATHEDRAL 

Published  in  "The  Forum,"  May,  1892 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  CATHEDRAL 


THE  American  traveler  visits  cathedrals  in  the 
Old  "World  with  frequent  enthusiasm  and  often 
with  sincere  and  profound  veneration.  Indeed,  it 
is  probable  that  the  larger  proportion  of  people 
who  make  such  pilgi'images,  whether  in  England 
or  on  the  Continent,  is  made  up  of  Americans. 
But  the  gi'eat  majority  of  these  find  in  cathedrals 
as  their  chief  charm  a  pictm^esque  antiquity ;  and 
of  Americans  who  have  never  seen  a  cathedral  a 
still  larger  majority  regard  them  as  venerable  but 
useless  anachronisms.  They  do  not  expect  to  see 
them  reproduced  in  their  own  land,  and  they  still 
less  desire  it.  They  remember  them  as  associated, 
in  the  history  of  the  past,  in  more  than  one  in- 
stance with  grave  abuses,  and  they  think  of  them 
as  costly  and  unfruitful  nests  for  pompous  and  in- 
dolent ecclesiastics.  Among  modern  novelists,  Mr. 
Anthony  Trollope  has  found  in  the  cathedral  and 
its  staff  a  fine  opportunity  for  amiable  satire ;  and 
the  misuse  or  perversion  of  a  great  institution  has 


21 


321 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

thus  come  to  be  widely  accepted  as  identical  with 
the  thing  itseK. 

And  so,  when  some  one,  touched  by  the  spell 
of  some  stately  and  splendid  minster,  asks  in  a 
moment  of  enkindled  feeling,  "Why  cannot  one 
whose  lot  is  cast  in  the  western  hemisphere  have 
the  cathedral!"  one  answer,  and  that  often  the 
first  that  one  hears,  is  that  "  cathedrals  belong  to 
the  past."  The  religion,  we  are  told,  of  the  times 
that  built  cathedrals  was  a  religion  of  much  igno- 
rance, of  almost  boundless  superstition,  of  large 
leisure,  and  usually  of  a  very  elementary  stage  of 
civilized  society.  There  was  little  teaching,  be- 
cause the  great  mass  of  the  people  was  too  igno- 
rant to  receive  it.  There  was  a  very  childish  faith 
on  the  one  hand,  and  there  was  enormous  assump- 
tion of  authority  on  the  other.  So  incapable  was 
the  ordinary  man  or  woman  of  being  impressed 
otherwise  than  pictorially,  that  in  ages  when  learn- 
ing was  the  possession  of  the  few,  when  printing 
had  not  been  discovered,  when  books  were  the 
privilege  of  the  rich,  religion  inevitably  took  on  a 
dramatic  or  spectacular  form,  to  which  the  vast- 
ness,  the  mystery,  and  the  stateliness  of  the  cathe- 
dral especially  lent  itself.  "  But  this,"  as  was  said 
not  long  ago  in  a  public  meeting  by  an  eloquent 
ecclesiastic,  "is  an  age  not  of  cathedrals,  but  of 
hospitals,"  The  appropriate  symbolism  of  religion 
is  something  —  a  building,  a  society,  a  cult  —  that 
stands  for  succor  and  ministry  to  the  homelier 
wants  of  man.  The  age,  we  are  told,  wants  work, 
not  worship ;  lint  and  bandages,  not  paternosters ; 

}22 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

men  and  women  trained  in  "first  aid  to  the  in- 
jured," not  sm'pliced  choirs,  and  vested  priests, 
and  pealing  organs,  and  "long-drawn  aisles"  and 
"storied  windows  richly  dight."  And  it  does.  Not 
that  this  age  is  peculiar  in  that,  nor  so  very  emi- 
nent, perhaps,  in  the  possession  of  such  things  as 
it  imagines  itself  to  be.  Doubtless  the  mecha- 
nisms of  human  ministry  and  succor  are  better 
to-day  than  they  were  one  hundred  or  five  hun- 
dred years  ago.  Doubtless  a  modern  hospital  is  a 
better-equipped  agency  for  taking  care  of  the  body 
than  an  ancient  hospice. 

But  it  is  well  to  remember  that  every  agency  — 
I  use  the  words  advisedly,  and  am  quite  ready  to 
be  challenged  for  their  accuracy  —  every  agency 
that  modern  Christianity  employs  in  doing  the 
work  of  its  Divine  Author  in  the  world  existed 
in  substance,  if  not  in  identical  form,  a  thousand 
years  ago ;  and  that  the  men  who  employed  those 
agencies  came  out  of  cathedrals,  or  buildings 
which  were  as  much  like  cathedi-als  —  abbeys, 
churches,  and  monastic  chapels  —  as  the  people 
of  those  times  could  make  them.  It  is  true  that 
the  old  agencies  became  corrupt,  and  that  the  men 
who  used  them  perverted  them  to  unworthy  uses. 
But  that  argument  is  of  precisely  the  same  force 
against  Christianity  itself  as  it  is  against  the  insti- 
tutions which  were  the  fruit  of  it.  And  while  we 
are  bound  to  recognize  that  fact,  we  are  bound  also 
to  ask  the  further  question:  In  all  the  noblest 
work  for  humanity  that  men  did  for  their  fellow- 
men,  in  ages  that  we  are  wont,  sometimes  with  a 

3^3 


The  Significance  of  the  A^nerican  Cathedral 

very  imperfect  knowledge  of  them,  to  call  "  dark 
ages,"  what  was  the  mainspring  of  their  minis- 
tries ?  About  that  there  can  be  no  smallest  ques- 
tion. It  was  not  the  "  enthusiasm  of  humanity,"  it 
was  not  any  doctrine  of  altruism,  it  was  the  touch 
of  that  spell  of  love  which  they  had  learned,  how- 
ever obscurely,  from  the  cross  of  Christ.  In  other 
words,  when  we  come  to  look  back  on  the  ages 
that  built  the  first  hospitals  and  founded  the  first 
brotherhoods  and  first  housed  the  orphans,  we  see 
that  all  this  manifold  service  for  humanity  was 
done  by  men  who  had  learned  the  secret  of  worli 
because  first  they  had  known  that  mightiest  in- 
spiration that  comes  from  worship.  One  would 
not  speak  ungratefully  or  ungi-aciously  of  those 
forms  of  religious  activity  which  distinguish  his 
own  generation.  It  may  well  be  thankfully  owned 
that  our  time  has  seen  a  vast  advance  upon  that 
conception  of  religion  which  was  largely  the  con- 
ception of  our  forefathers  —  a  conception  that  con- 
founded discipleship  with  ecstasy,  that  mistook 
passive  receptivity  for  devotion,  that  construed 
piety  to  be  a  kind  of  spiritual  gluttony.  I  do  not 
wonder  at  the  revolt  which  has  dismissed  such  a 
conception  of  Christian  discipleship  from  multi- 
tudes of  lives. 

But  we  may  well  take  care  lest  in  recoihng  from 
one  extravagance  we  may  swing  over  into  another. 
Am  I  exaggerating  what  I  may  call  the  public  or 
social  manifestation  of  religion,  its  organized  ex- 
pression, as  it  widely  prevails  among  us,  when  I 
say  that  the  church,  in  the  popular  conception, 

324 


The  Significance  of  ibe  American  Cathedral 

consists  mainly  of  a  huge  auditorium  with  a  plat- 
form and  a  more  or  less  dramatic  performer,  and 
a  congregational  parlor,  and  a  parish  kitchen  ?  I 
recognize  cordially  the  earnest  pui-pose  to  get  hold 
of  people  out  of  which  much  of  this  has  come. 
But  it  is  well  to  recognize  something  else,  and  that 
is,  that  religion  has  never  survived  anj^where  with- 
out the  due  recognition  and  consei^vation  of  the 
instinct  of  worship.  That  lies  at  the  basis  of 
it,  always  and  eveiywhere.  First,  there  must  be 
something  that  moves  us  to  that  upward-reaching 
thought  out  of  which  come  penitence,  and  prayer, 
and  faith  —  and  all  the  rest.  But  a  diet-kitchen 
will  not  do  that,  nor  anything  that  appeals  only  to 
the  utilitarian  side  of  life.  I  appeal  to  any  candid 
experience  whether  there  is  not,  on  the  other  hand, 
something  else  that  does.  I  ask  those  who  remem- 
ber Rouen,  or  Durham,  or  Salisbury  whether,  when 
first  they  entered  some  such  noble  sanctuary,  there 
was  not  that  in  its  proportions,  its  arrangements, 
its  whole  atmosphere,  which  made  it,  in  a  sense 
that  it  had  never  been  before,  their  impulse  to 
kneel  ?  We  may  protest  that  this  is  mere  religious 
estheticism,  and  in  one  sense  it  is;  but  until  we 
have  divorced  the  soul  and  the  body,  the  eye  and 
the  mind,  the  imagination  and  the  senses,  we  can- 
not leave  it  out  of  account.  We  Americans  are 
said  to  be  the  most  irreverent  people  in  the  world, 
and  of  the  substantial  truth  of  that  accusation 
there  cannot  be  the  smallest  doubt.  But  did  it 
ever  occur  to  us  to  ask  how  it  has  come  about? 
It  is  time  to  stop  talking  about  the  influence  of 

325 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

Puritan  traditions  to  descendants  who  are  so  re- 
mote from  those  traditions  as  to  be  unable  to 
distinguish  between  the  austerity  that  hated  cere- 
monialism and  the  debonair  indifferentism  that 
dismisses  the  simplest  elements  of  religious  de- 
corum. We  have  little  reverence,  because  we  have 
but  a  poor  environment  in  which  to  learn  it.  The 
vast  majority  of  church  buildings  in  America  are 
utterly  unsuggestive  of  the  idea  of  worship.  There 
is  nothing  in  them  to  hush  speech,  to  uncover  the 
head,  to  bend  the  knee.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  They  are  expedients 
devised  for  a  certain  use,  and  that  use  is  one 
which,  under  any  honest  construction  of  it,  in- 
volves an  utterly  fragmentary  conception  of  the 
Christian  rehgion. 

And  what,  meantime,  have  we  been  seeing  all 
over  the  land?  We  have  been  seeing  a  develop- 
ment of  domestic,  civic,  and  commercial  architec- 
ture of  the  most  costly  and  gi-andiose  kind.  I 
have  been  told  that  the  costliest  building  in  Amer- 
ica is  that  which  houses  a  life-insurance  company. 
Is  this  a  fine  satu*e  on  that  decay  of  faith  that  has 
dismissed  out  of  the  horizon  all  other  and  more 
irretrievable  risks  of  destruction?  Surely,  about 
one  thing  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  that  is  that 
the  noblest  ideas  should  have  the  noblest  expres- 
sion. But  what  are  the  noblest  ideas  if  they  are 
not  those  which  ally  man  to  a  nobler  and  diviner 
future!  It  is  in  vain  that  a  clever  skepticism  — 
comic  and,  forsooth,  textually  critical  in  the  latest 
and  noisiest  exhibition  of  it  among  us  —  it  is  in 

^26 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

vain  that  such  a  skepticism  dispenses  with  God, 
and  tells  us  that  it  has  looked  into  the  bottom  of 
the  analytical  chemist's  crucible  and  found  no  soul. 
Out  from  the  despair  of  the  present  the  heart 
travels  as  by  a  mathematical  law  along  the  ascend- 
ing arc  of  faith  until  it  reaches  the  vision  of  the 
kingdom  that  is  to  be.  And  the  witness  of  that 
kingdom — its  visible  expression  in  stone  and  color, 
in  form  and  dimensions,  in  position  and  dignity — 
is  tlfiat  not  of  the  smallest  possible  consequence, 
while  you  are  taking  infinite  pains  with  your 
child's  bedroom  that  it  shall  have  its  face  to 
the  sun,  or  your  stables  that  they  shall  be  well 
drained?  There  is  something,  when  we  stop  to 
think  of  it,  in  the  relative  cost  and  thought  that 
men  spend  on  the  places  in  which  they  sleep,  and 
eat,  and  lounge,  and  trade  —  on  a  club,  a  hotel,  a 
theater,  a  bank  —  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  a  house 
for  the  worship  of  the  Arbiter  of  one's  eternal  des- 
tiny on  the  other,  which  must  strike  an  angel,  if  he 
is  capable  of  such  an  emotion,  with  a  sense  of  pa- 
thetic humor.  And  we  are,  many  of  us,  so  entirely 
clear  about  it.  "Yes,"  we  say  in  effect,  "let  us 
have  churches  which  are  cheap  expedients,  and 
that  in  the  poverty  of  their  every  attribute  express 
the  poverty  of  our  conceptions  of  reverence,  of 
majesty,  of  worship.  But  let  us  build  om*  own 
palaces  as  if  indeed  we  ourselves  were  kings."  I 
submit  that  in  such  a  situation  the  cathedral,  in- 
stead of  being  an  anachronism,  is  a  long-neglected 
witness  which  we  may  sorely  need.  The  greatest 
ages  of  the  world,  the  greatest  nations  of  the  world, 

327 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

have  not  been  those  that  built  only  for  their  own 
comfort  or  amusement ;  and  it  is  simply  inevitable 
that  a  great  idea  meanly  housed,  meanly  expressed 
in  these  forms  in  which  we  express  reverence  for 
our  heroes  and  love  for  our  dead,  and  loyalty  to 
our  country  —  in  which,  in  one  word,  we  express 
toward  our  best  and  greatest  among  om*  fellow- 
men,  or  toward  human  institutions,  veneration  and 
affection  and  patriotism  —  it  is  inevitable,  I  say, 
that  a  gi'eat  idea  thus  meanly  treated  will  come  to 
be  meanly  esteemed.  We  are  fond  of  speaking,  on 
the  one  hand,  of  what  is  archaic  and  superannu- 
ated, and  of  our  cis- Atlantic  wants  and  conditions 
as  being,  on  the  other  hand,  somehow  absolutely 
unique  and  exceptional.  But  they  are  not.  Amer- 
ica wants,  I  suppose,  honesty  and  integrity  and  faith 
quite  as  much,  and  indeed  rather  more,  than  she 
wants  electric  railways  and  a  protective  tariff. 
And  if  so,  she  wants  the  visible  institutions  which 
at  once  testify  to  and  bear  witness  for  these  things, 
and  that  in  their  most  majestic  and  convincing  pro- 
portions. It  would  be  an  interesting  question,  if  a 
foreigner  were  asked  where  in  America  he  had  seen 
any  visible  structure  which  impressively  witnessed 
to  religion,  and  which  compared  worthily  with  the 
enormous  buildings  reared  for  other  purposes,  or 
with  similar  structm-es  in  other  lands  —  it  would 
be  interesting,  I  repeat,  if  somewhat  humiliating, 
to  hear  what  he  would  say.  For,  in  fact,  there  are 
not  five  church  edifices  in  the  United  States  which, 
for  dignity,  monumental  grandeur,  nobility  of  con- 
ception or  proportion,  are  worthy  of  being  men- 

328 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

tioned.  And  it  would  seem  to  be  worth  while  to 
consider  whether,  the  country  having  spent  the 
first  hundred  years  of  its  existence  in  making  itself 
extremely  rich  and  extremely  comfortable,  it  might 
not  be  well  to  set  about  building  at  least  one  noble 
stracture  which  did  not  weave,  or  print,  or  mold, 
or  feed,  or  lodge,  save  as  it  wove  the  garment  of 
an  immortal  hope,  and  fed,  and  formed,  and  housed 
those  creatures  of  a  yet  loftier  destiny  who  are 
immortal.  In  one  word,  it  can  hardly  be  urged 
that  a  cathedral  is  out  of  date  until  it  is  admitted 
that  it  is  out  of  date  to  believe  in  God  and  to  wor- 
ship him. 

But  again,  it  is  urged  by  a  very  different  class 
of  objectors  that  while  there  may  be  force  in  what 
has  been  thus  far  urged,  a  cathedral  is  a  thing  not 
to  be  desu'ed,  because  as  an  institution  it  fosters 
the  spirit  of  ecclesiasticism,  promotes  the  growth 
of  priestly  assumptions,  and  builds  up  within  the 
communion  that  accepts  it  an  official  oligarchy, 
narrow  in  its  vision,  arrogant  in  its  pretensions, 
and  reactionary  in  its  influence.  There  is  much  in 
histoiy  that  confirms  such  an  impression,  and  it 
will  be  well  frankly  to  recognize  it.  But  we  have 
no  sooner  discerned  such  a  fact  than  we  may,  if  we 
choose,  discern  the  reason  for  it.  The  cathedral 
has  been,  in  many  ages  and  lands  throughout 
Christendom,  in  this  particular  like  religious  or- 
ders. It  has  been  made  up  of  men  of  one  caste  or 
class.  The  administration  of  its  affairs,  both  tem- 
poral and  spiritual,  has  been  largely  vested  in  the 
hands  of  this  one  class.    Abuses  of  power,  pen'^er- 

329 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

sions  of  function,  misappropriation  of  property,  in- 
dolence, nepotism,  and  unwarrantable  usurpations 
have  all  been  possible,  if  not  inevitable,  because  a 
single  caste  or  class  has  exercised  its  powers  and 
discharged  its  trusts  unchecked  by  criticism  or 
revision  other  than  that  of  its  own  order.  Now, 
it  does  not  greatly  matter  what  the  order  may 
happen  to  be,  ecclesiastical,  civic,  or  military:  such 
a  condition  of  things  carries  in  its  train  the  same 
inevitable  dangers.  The  remedy  is  obvious,  and 
in  modern  ecclesiastical  corporations  it  has  been, 
on  the  whole,  wisely  applied.  It  is  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  lay  element  into  the  administration  of 
ecclesiastical  affairs.  That  in  the  recoil  from  the 
abuses  of  priest-ridden  communities  or  institutions 
the  movement  in  that  direction  may  have  been 
excessive  is  not  improbable ;  but  on  the  whole,  at 
any  rate  in  that  communion  of  which  the  writer  is 
a  member,  the  abuses  in  connection,  for  example, 
with  a  cathedral  which  are  the  product  of  undue 
authority  and  excessive  isolation  on  the  part  of 
the  clergy  are  no  longer  possible.  In  one  way  or 
another  (it  is  not  possible  within  these  limits  to  in- 
dicate in  detail  how  this  is  variously  provided  for 
in  various  dioceses),  no  American  cathedral  can 
ever  be  wholly  independent  of  any  other  than 
merely  clerical  control  and  restraint. 

Meantime,  to  those  who  are  wont  to  think  of  the 
cathedral  as  fruitful  only  of  ecclesiastical  exclu- 
siveness  or  of  pampered  indolence,  it  is  well  to  re- 
member that,  of  the  names  that  come  first  to  one's 
lips  in  rehearsing  the  history  of  modern  theological 

330 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

literature, — e.  ^.,  in  the  Church  of  England, — those 
of  Alford  and  Milman,  of  Trench  and  Wordsworth, 
of  Stanley  and  Liddon,  and  Westcott,  and  Payne- 
Smith,  and  Burgon,  and  Wace,  and  Row,  are  only 
a  few  of  many  to  whom  scholars  everywhere  have 
been  indebted,  and  all  of  these  have  been  deans 
or  canons  or  prebendaries  in  English  cathedrals. 
"When  we  think  of  a  cathedral,  we  are  apt  to  think 
merely  of  a  huge  building;  but  in  fact  the  building 
is  simply  the  home  of  an  organized  society,  and  the 
organized  society  exists  to  give  the  most  adequate 
expression  to  religious  worship  and  the  most  eflS.- 
cient  presentation  of  religious  truth.  And  so,  out 
of  the  necessary  provision  not  for  one  man  of  one 
gift,  but  for  a  gi'oup  of  men  of  various  gifts,  there 
comes  a  fellowship  of  community  which  may  in- 
deed, like  any  other  earthly  community,  be  per- 
verted from  its  original  design  to  unworthy  ends, 
but  which  holds,  nevertheless,  in  that  original  de- 
sign one  of  the  noblest  possible  conceptions  of  the 
effective  use  of  the  best  gifts  for  the  greatest  good 
of  the  greatest  number.  So  far  as  the  ministry 
can  consent  at  all  to  be  called  a  profession,  the  ap- 
pointments to  cathedral  dignities,  deaneries,  can- 
onries,  and  the  rest  may  be  regarded  as  the  prizes 
of  the  profession.  And,  on  the  whole,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that,  in  our  time  at  any  rate,  they  are,  as  a 
rule,  wisely  and  worthily  bestowed.  This,  however, 
is  of  far  less  consequence  than  the  further  fact  that 
such  bestowal  has  undoubtedly  resulted  in  giving, 
to  men  of  exceptional  gifts,  opportunities  which 
otherwise  they  could  never  have  commanded  for 

331 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

employing  these  gifts  and  enlarging  the  horizon  of 
the  best  scholarship,  and  in  the  loftiest  realm  of 
learning,  which  is  surely  that  of  theology. 

In  om-  country,  for  a  considerable  part  of  its 
earlier  history,  this  result  has  been  reached  to 
some  extent  in  connection  with  our  colleges  and 
universities.  But  whatever  may  have  been  the 
services  which  these  have  rendered  to  the  cause 
of  sound  learning,  it  will  not  be  denied  that  their 
dominant  enthusiasms  are  to-day  directed  toward 
a  learning  which  is  purely  secular.  Less  and  less 
are  American  colleges,  especially  those  of  com- 
manding influence,  the  homes  of  rehgious  teach- 
ing or  theological  inquiry;  and  though  there  are 
other  centers  for  these  things,  none  of  them  can 
ever  have  the  unique  advantages  of  that  calm  re- 
treat which  is  to  be  found  in  a  cathedral  close. 
Worship,  meditation,  and  the  large  liberty  from 
pedagogic  duties  which  there  obtain  would  seem 
to  be  the  ideal  conditions  for  the  achievements  of 
a  Christian  scholar. 

But  even  if  this  is  admitted,  there  are  those 
who  will  still  dismiss  the  cathedral  with  the  one 
sweeping  and  final  condemnation  that  it  is  "un- 
American."  I  have  never  been  quite  able  to  make 
out  why  this  is  said,  unless  it  be  that  cathedrals  are 
not  indigenous  to  America,  or  else  because  deans 
and  canons  are  sometimes  appointed  by  the  Queen. 
On  any  other  ground  there  could  not  well  be  a 
more  curiously  inaccurate  statement.  Dismissing 
any  attempt  at  subtle  definition,  I  suppose  that 
the  synonym  for  "un-American"  would  be  "un- 

332 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

democratic,"  or  "  aristocratic,"  or  "  exclusive."  But 
the  cathedral  in  America,  at  any  rate  in  any  case 
in  which  its  worship  is  not  in  an  alien  tongue  and 
under  foreign  authority,  is  of  all  other  places  the 
one  in  which  the  principles  of  democracy  invaria- 
bly obtain.  The  history  of  religious  worship  and 
of  religious  buildings  in  America  is,  in  this  aspect 
of  it,  as  exceptional  as  it  is  inconsistent.  I  pre- 
sume it  would  be  safe  to  say  that  there  is  no  other 
land  in  Christendom  where  so  many  places  of  re- 
Ugious  worship  bear  witness  to  the  inflexible  su- 
premacy of  the  spirit  of  caste.  For  what  is  the 
spirit  of  caste  if  it  be  not  the  spirit  which  in  these 
conditions  and  relationships,  seeming  to  exclude 
distinctions  implying  superiority  or  inferiority  of 
persons,  insists  upon  affirming  them!  And  is 
there  any  other  institution  which,  in  the  face  of  the 
plain  teachings  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  as 
where  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  it  is  said :  "  My 
brethren,  have  not  the  faith  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Lord  of  glory,  with  respect  of  persons. 
For  if  there  come  unto  your  assembly  a  man  with 
a  gold  ring,  in  goodly  apparel,  and  there  come  in 
also  a  poor  man  in  \ile  raiment ;  and  ye  have  re- 
spect to  him  that  weareth  the  gay  clothing,  and 
say  unto  him.  Sit  thou  here  in  a  good  place ;  and 
say  to  the  poor,  Stand  thou  there,  or  sit  here  under 
my  footstool:  Are  ye  not  then  partial  in  your- 
selves, and  are  become  judges  of  evil  thoughts?" 
(i.  e.,  discriminate  from  unworthy  motives)  —  is 
there,  I  ask,  any  other  institution  which,  in  the 
face  of  the  plain  teaching  of  its  Founder,  departs 

333 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

so  radically  and  habitually  from  that  teaching  as 
thus  given  as  does  the  modern  pewed  church?  Mr. 
Webster  once  said  that  it  was  an  evidence  of  the 
divine  origin  of  Christianity  that  it  had  so  long 
survived  its  being  preached  in  tub  pulpits.  It  will 
be  a  stronger  evidence  of  it  if  in  America  it  sur- 
vives the  enormous  incongruity  of  the  pew  system. 
But  in  St.  Paul's  in  London  or  in  St.  Peter's  in 
Eome,  to-day,  sanctuaries  each  of  grandest  propor- 
tions and  of  most  magnificent  worship,  you  may 
see  what  never  since  their  doors  were  opened  has 
by  any  chance  been  seen  in  any  one  of  the  sanc- 
tuaries that  line  our  chief  thoroughfares  in  the 
great  cities  of  America  —  and  that  is,  a  steady 
stream  not  alone  of  the  poor,  but  of  the  poorest, 
ragged,  barefooted,  travel-stained,  working-women 
and  peasants,  with  babies  in  their  arms,  to  whom 
those  Christian  temples  are  not  theu's,  or  yours,  or 
mine,  but  God's,  and  therefore  as  free  to  them  as 
Grod's  air  and  God's  sunshine. 

And  now  it  may  well  be  asked,  if  we  are  going 
to  teach  the  great  lesson  of  Christian  brotherhood, 
of  the  absolute  equality  of  aU  men  before  their 
Father  who  is  in  heaven,  how  more  expressively 
can  we  teach  and  affirm  it  than  by  rearing  a  sanc- 
tuary in  which  nowhere  nor  under  any  conditions 
shall  there  be  any  reserved  rights,  any  locked 
pews,  any  hired  sittings,  any  proscription  on  the 
one  hand  or  any  favoritism  on  the  other  %  And  if 
any  one  inquires  whether  this  is  anything  else  than 
an  idle  dream,  let  him  go  and  see  the  congrega- 
tions of  thousands  —  six  or  seven  thousand  some- 

.334 


The  Significance  of  the  American  Cathedral 

times  —  of  working-men  gathered  under  the  dome 
of  St.  Paul's,  and  privileged  to  share  in  what  is  to- 
day undoubtedly  the  noblest  and  most  impressive 
service  in  Christendom.  The  hesi  is  there,  and  is 
for  him  who  will  come  and  take  it. 

It  is  in  this  conception  that  the  true  idea  of  a 
cathedral  culminates.  It  is  vast,  it  is  rich,  it  is 
stately  and  majestic  in  proportion  and  in  appoint- 
ments. It  is  for  the  honor  of  God,  and  not  for  the 
glory  of  man  —  and  it  is  free  to  all  alike.  If  this  is 
un-American,  then  they  who  founded  the  Republic 
were  un-American  also.  In  one  word,  the  past  of 
Christendom  has  given  to  the  future  of  America  a 
great  and  noble  instrument.  Let  not  ours  be  the 
doubtful  wisdom  of  those  who  are  afraid  to  use  it ! 


335 


HENRY  K 


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